- 332C Morton Hall
301 Sparkman Drive
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899 USA
Nicholaos Jones
University of Alabama in Huntsville, Philosophy, Faculty Member
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Chinese Buddhism, Public Philosophy, Huayan Buddhism, Comparative Philosophy, and 27 moreIntelligence Analysis, Epistemic Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, Postphenomenology, Epistemology of technology, Indian Buddhism, Buddhist Philosophy, Chinese Philosophy, Metaphysics, Explanation, Philosophy of Biology, Social Robotics, Machine Ethics, Autonomous Robotics, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Philosophy of Technology, Scientific explanation, Buddhism, Yogacara, Indian Philosophy, Proxemics, Human-Robot Interaction, General Philosophy of Science, Nagarjuna, Classical Chinese Philosophy, Social Epistemology, and Analytic Philosophyedit
Comparing Buddhist and contemporary analytic views about mereological composition reveals significant dissimilarities about the purposes that constrain successful answers to mereological questions, the kinds of considerations taken to be... more
Comparing Buddhist and contemporary analytic views about mereological composition reveals significant dissimilarities about the purposes that constrain successful answers to mereological questions, the kinds of considerations taken to be probative in justifying those answers, and the value of mereological inquiry. I develop these dissimilarities by examining three questions relevant to those who deny the existence of composite wholes. The first is a question of justification: What justifies denying the existence of composite wholes as more reasonable than affirming their existence? The second is a question of ontology: Under what conditions are many partless individuals arranged composite-wise? The third is a question of reasonableness: Why, if there are no composites available to experience, do "the folk" find it reasonable to believe there are? I motivate each question, sketch some analytic answers for each, develop in more detail answers from the Theravādin Buddhist scholar Buddhaghosa, and extract comparative lessons.
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Names name, but there are no individuals who are named by names. This is the key to an elegant and ideologically parsimonious strategy for analyzing the Buddhist catuṣkoṭi. The strategy is ideologically parsimonious, because it appeals to... more
Names name, but there are no individuals who are named by names. This is the key to an elegant and ideologically parsimonious strategy for analyzing the Buddhist catuṣkoṭi. The strategy is ideologically parsimonious, because it appeals to no analytic resources beyond those of standard predicate logic. The strategy is elegant, because it is, in effect, an application of Bertrand Russell's theory of definite descriptions to Buddhist contexts. The strategy imposes some minor adjustments upon Russell's theory. Attention to familiar catuṣkoṭi from Vacchagotta and Nagarjuna as well as more obscure catuṣkoṭi from Khema, Zhi Yi, and Fa Zang motivates the adjustments. The result is a principled structural distinction between affirmative and negative catuṣkoṭi, as well as analyses for each that compare favorably to more recent efforts from Tillemans, Westerhoff, and Priest (among others).
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This paper examines the Huayan teaching of the six characteristics as presented in the Rafter Dialogue from Fazang's Treatise on the Five Teachings. The goal is to make the teaching accessible to those with minimal training in Buddhist... more
This paper examines the Huayan teaching of the six characteristics as presented in the Rafter Dialogue from Fazang's Treatise on the Five Teachings. The goal is to make the teaching accessible to those with minimal training in Buddhist philosophy, and especially for those who aim to engage with the extensive question-and-answer section of the Rafter Dialogue. The method for achieving this goal is threefold: first, contextualizing Fazang's account of the characteristics with earlier Buddhist attempts to theorize the relationships between wholes and their parts; second, explicating the meaning Fazang likely attributes to each of the six characteristics; third, situating the characteristics as explicated within Fazang's broader metaphysical framework.
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This paper explicates the counting ten coins metaphor as it appears in Fazang's Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan. The goal is to transform Fazang's inexact and obscure mentions of the metaphor into something that is clearer and... more
This paper explicates the counting ten coins metaphor as it appears in Fazang's Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan. The goal is to transform Fazang's inexact and obscure mentions of the metaphor into something that is clearer and more precise. The method for achieving this goal is threefold: first, presenting Fazang's version of the metaphor as improving upon prior efforts by Zhiyan and Ŭisang to interpret a brief stanza in the Avataṁsaka sutra; second, providing textual evidence to support this interpretation; third, contrasting this interpretation with alternatives from Francis Cook as well as Yasuo Deguchi and Katsuhiko Sano.
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Fazang's arguments in his Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan provide a philosophical foundation for the Avatamsaka Sutra's rich and suggestive imagery. This chapter focuses on one of Fazang's central arguments in that treatise,... more
Fazang's arguments in his Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan provide a philosophical foundation for the Avatamsaka Sutra's rich and suggestive imagery. This chapter focuses on one of Fazang's central arguments in that treatise, namely, his argument that mutually reliant dharmas are mutually identical. The chapter presents the background context for Fazang's argument, reconstructs the argument's logical structure, interprets the central concepts appearing therein, and explains why Fazang might have found plausible his argument's premises. Specific discussion points include: the non-duality of existence and emptiness; relations between causes and their conditions; the meaning of creation and identity; connections with the ti-yong paradigm; Fazang's analogy of the ten coins. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of Fazang's metaphysics for contemporary discussions of substance and ontological foundations.
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Mark Siderits defends two views about Buddhism. The first is that the Buddhist denial of independently-existing selves is best understood as a kind of reductionism, according to which wholes, by virtue of being nothing more than their... more
Mark Siderits defends two views about Buddhism. The first is that the Buddhist denial of independently-existing selves is best understood as a kind of reductionism, according to which wholes, by virtue of being nothing more than their atomic parts, are conventionally real but ultimately unreal. The second is that the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness is not a metaphysical thesis, according to which nothing has an intrinsic nature of its own, but rather a semantic thesis, according to which no statement about ultimate reality is true. This chapter uses central metaphysical doctrines from the Huayan School of Chinese Buddhism to develop, in contrast, a non-reductionist approach to wholes and a metaphysical construal of emptiness.
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Fazang 法藏 (643-712) ranks among the preeminent Buddhists of medieval China. His writings reveal an innovative vision of the world that reconciles Buddhist philosophy to traditional Chinese values. This chapter focuses on his... more
Fazang 法藏 (643-712) ranks among the preeminent Buddhists of medieval China. His writings reveal an innovative vision of the world that reconciles Buddhist philosophy to traditional Chinese values. This chapter focuses on his hermeneutics, accompanying theories of causation, and the teaching of the six characteristics that results from his theory of dharmadhātu causation. The chapter begins by showing how Fazang's commitment to an ideal of inclusivity motivates one of his schemes for classifying the diverse schools of Buddhism. Next, the chapter surveys four different theories of causation, demonstrating how Fazang's commitment to Huayan 華嚴 Buddhism as the maximally inclusive form of Buddhism motivates his theory of dharmadhātu causation. The chapter then explains how this theory motivates Fazang's mereology in his teaching of the six characteristics and evaluates extant proposals to justify this mereology. This sets the stage for a brief comparison between Fazang’s mereology and the mereological commitments of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of whether Fazang’s metaphysics is paradoxical.
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Huayan Buddhism offers a solution to the Problem of the One over the Many that preserves the reality of wholes without treating the whole-part relation as eternal. I reconstruct the details of this solution, and contrast it with... more
Huayan Buddhism offers a solution to the Problem of the One over the Many that preserves the reality of wholes without treating the whole-part relation as eternal. I reconstruct the details of this solution, and contrast it with competitors from Nyāya-Vaisheshika and Indian Buddhism.
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This paper interprets some of Fazang's mereological remarks--that wholes are in each of their parts and that each part of a whole is every other part of the whole--and reconstructs his arguments for these remarks. On the interpretation I... more
This paper interprets some of Fazang's mereological remarks--that wholes are in each of their parts and that each part of a whole is every other part of the whole--and reconstructs his arguments for these remarks. On the interpretation I favor, Fazang means that the presence of a whole's part suffices for the presence of the whole and that the presence of any such part is both necessary and sufficient for the presence of any other part.
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This paper attempts to explain, in a way familiar to contemporary ways of thinking about mereology and in a way that does not violate the principle of non-contradiction, why someone might accept some prima-facie puzzling remarks by the... more
This paper attempts to explain, in a way familiar to contemporary ways of thinking about mereology and in a way that does not violate the principle of non-contradiction, why someone might accept some prima-facie puzzling remarks by the Chinese Buddhist philosopher Fazang, such as his claims that the eye of a lion is its ear and that a rafter of a building is identical to the building itself.
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This paper presents a formal system for the logic of soku that relies upon a distinction between internal and external negation and preserves the principle of non-contradiction.
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I consider three explanatory strategies from recent systems biology that are driven by mathematics as much as mechanistic detail. Analysis of differential equations drives the first strategy; topological analysis of network motifs drives... more
I consider three explanatory strategies from recent systems biology that are driven by mathematics as much as mechanistic detail. Analysis of differential equations drives the first strategy; topological analysis of network motifs drives the second; mathematical theorems from control engineering drive the third. I also distinguish three abstraction types: aggregations, which simplify by condensing details; generalizations, which simplify by generalizing details; and structurations, which simplify by contextualizing details. Using a common explanandum as reference point-namely, the robust perfect adaptation of chemotaxis in Escherichia coli-I argue that each strategy targets various abstraction types to different mechanistic details.
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The increasing application of network models to interpret biological systems raises a number of important methodological and epistemological questions. What novel insights can network analysis provide in biology? Are network approaches an... more
The increasing application of network models to interpret biological systems raises a number of important methodological and epistemological questions. What novel insights can network analysis provide in biology? Are network approaches an extension of or in conflict with mechanistic research strategies? When and how can network and mechanistic approaches interact in productive ways? In this paper we address these questions by focusing on how biological networks are represented and analyzed in a diverse class of case studies. Our examples span from the investigation of organizational properties of biological networks using tools from graph theory to the application of dynamical systems theory to understand the behavior of complex biological systems. We show how network approaches support and extend traditional mechanistic strategies but also offer novel strategies for dealing with biological complexity.
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Life scientists increasingly rely upon abstraction-based modeling and reasoning strategies for understanding biological phenomena. We introduce the notion of constraint-based reasoning as a fruitful tool for conceptualizing some of these... more
Life scientists increasingly rely upon abstraction-based modeling and reasoning strategies for understanding biological phenomena. We introduce the notion of constraint-based reasoning as a fruitful tool for conceptualizing some of these developments. One important role of mathematical abstractions is to impose formal constraints on a search space for possible hypotheses and thereby guide the search for plausible causal models. Formal constraints are, however, not only tools for biological explanations but can be explanatory by virtue of clarifying general dependency-relations and patterning between functions and structures. We describe such situations as constraint-based explanations and argue that these differ from mechanistic strategies in important respects. While mechanistic explanations emphasize change-relating causal features, constraint-based explanations emphasize formal dependencies and generic organizational features that are relatively independent of lower-level changes in causal details.. Our distinction between mechanistic and constraint-based explanations is pragmatically motivated by the wish to understand scientific practice. We contend that delineating the affordances and assumptions of different explanatory questions and strategies helps to clarify tensions between diverging scientific practices and the innovative potentials in their combination. Moreover, we show how constraint-based explanation integrate several features shared by otherwise different philosophical accounts of abstract explanatory strategies in biology
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"While mechanistic explanation and, to a lesser extent, nomological explanation are well-explored topics in the philosophy of biology, topological explanation is not. Nor is the role of diagrams in topological explanations. These... more
"While mechanistic explanation and, to a lesser extent, nomological explanation are well-explored topics in the philosophy of biology, topological explanation is not. Nor is the role of diagrams in topological explanations. These explanations do not appeal to the operation of mechanisms or laws, and extant accounts of the role of diagrams in biological science explain neither why scientists might prefer diagrammatic representations of topological information to sentential equivalents nor how such
representations might facilitate important processes of explanatory reasoning unavailable to scientists who restrict themselves to sentential representations. Accordingly, relying upon a case study about immune system vulnerability to attacks on CD4+ T-cells, I argue that diagrams group together information in a way that avoids repetition in representing topological structure, facilitate identification of specific topological properties of those structures, and make available to controlled processing
explanatorily salient counterfactual information about topological structures, all in ways that sentential counterparts of diagrams do not."
representations might facilitate important processes of explanatory reasoning unavailable to scientists who restrict themselves to sentential representations. Accordingly, relying upon a case study about immune system vulnerability to attacks on CD4+ T-cells, I argue that diagrams group together information in a way that avoids repetition in representing topological structure, facilitate identification of specific topological properties of those structures, and make available to controlled processing
explanatorily salient counterfactual information about topological structures, all in ways that sentential counterparts of diagrams do not."
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We argue that diagrams in biology can provide functional explanations and facilitate the construction of mathematical models. Extending beyond prior analyses, we also show how diagrams facilitate the construction of mathematical models,... more
We argue that diagrams in biology can provide functional explanations and facilitate the construction of mathematical models. Extending beyond prior analyses, we also show how diagrams facilitate the construction of mathematical models, we argue that the diagrams permit nomological explanations of the cell cycle, and we argue that what makes diagrams integral and indispensible for explanation and model construction is their nature as locality aids: they group together information that is to be used together in a way that sentential representations do not.
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How and why were you initially drawn to systems biology? How do you view the relation between philosophy and systems biology, and (how) can these fields inform each other? What do you consider the most neglected topics and/or... more
How and why were you initially drawn to systems biology? How do you view the relation between philosophy and systems biology, and (how) can these fields inform each other? What do you consider the most neglected topics and/or contributions in late 20th Century (philosophy of) biology? What have been the most significant advances in systems biology? What do you consider the most important problems in (philosophy of) systems biology and what are the prospects for progress in this respect?
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I propose a necessary condition for a substantial distinction between abstracting from a property of a physical system and idealizing that property.
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Idealizing conditions are scapegoats for scientific hypotheses, too often blamed for falsehood better attributed to less obvious sources. But while the tendency to blame idealizations is common among both philosophers of science and... more
Idealizing conditions are scapegoats for scientific hypotheses, too often blamed for falsehood better attributed to less obvious sources. But while the tendency to blame idealizations is common among both philosophers of science and scientists themselves, the blame is misplaced. Attention to the nature of idealizing conditions, the content of idealized hypotheses, and scientists' attitudes toward those hypotheses shows that idealizing conditions are blameless when hypotheses misrepresent. These conditions help to determine the content of idealized hypotheses, and they do so in a way that prevents those hypotheses from being false by virtue of their constituent idealizations.
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I develop a program for understanding why General Relativity and the Standard Model of particle physics are not disconfirmed by evidence about phenomena for which, respectively, quantum effects and gravity matter.
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There is a new argument form within theoretical biology. This form takes as input competing explanatory models; it yields as output the conclusion that one of these models is more plausible than the others. The driving force for this... more
There is a new argument form within theoretical biology. This form takes as input competing explanatory models; it yields as output the conclusion that one of these models is more plausible than the others. The driving force for this argument form is an analysis showing that one model exhibits more parametric robustness than its competitors. This article examines these inferences to the more robust explanation, analysing them as variants of inference to the best explanation. The article defines parametric robustness and distinguishes it from more familiar kinds of robustness. The article also argues that parametric robustness is an explanatory virtue not subsumed by more familiar explanatory virtues, and that the plausibility verdicts in the conclusions of inferences to the more robust explanations are best interpreted as guidance for research activity, rather than claims about likely truth. 1. Introducing Inference to the More Robust Explanation2. Inference to the More Robust Explanation in the Study of Apoptosis 2.1. Regulating apoptosis2.2. Competing models and evidential indecision2.3. Measuring robustness2.4. Robustness as a guide to plausibility2.5. Varieties of robustness3. Inference to the More Robust Explanation as Inference to the Best Explanation 3.1. The structure of inference to the best explanation3.2. Parametric robustness as an explanatory virtue rather than an explanandum3.3. Relation of parametric robustness to other explanatory virtues4. Epistemological Significance of Inference to the More Robust Explanation 4.1. Plausibility in practice4.2. Plausibility in principle5. Conclusion Introducing Inference to the More Robust Explanation Inference to the More Robust Explanation in the Study of Apoptosis 2.1. Regulating apoptosis2.2. Competing models and evidential indecision2.3. Measuring robustness2.4. Robustness as a guide to plausibility2.5. Varieties of robustness Regulating apoptosis Competing models and evidential indecision Measuring robustness Robustness as a guide to plausibility Varieties of robustness Inference to the More Robust Explanation as Inference to the Best Explanation 3.1. The structure of inference to the best explanation3.2. Parametric robustness as an explanatory virtue rather than an explanandum3.3. Relation of parametric robustness to other explanatory virtues The structure of inference to the best explanation Parametric robustness as an explanatory virtue rather than an explanandum Relation of parametric robustness to other explanatory virtues Epistemological Significance of Inference to the More Robust Explanation 4.1. Plausibility in practice4.2. Plausibility in principle Plausibility in practice Plausibility in principle Conclusion
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Fazang’s arguments in his Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan provide a philosophical foundation for the Avatamsaka Sutra’s rich and suggestive imagery. This chapter focuses on one of Fazang’s central arguments in that treatise,... more
Fazang’s arguments in his Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan provide a philosophical foundation for the Avatamsaka Sutra’s rich and suggestive imagery. This chapter focuses on one of Fazang’s central arguments in that treatise, namely, his argument that mutually reliant dharmas are mutually identical. The chapter presents the background context for Fazang’s argument, reconstructs the argument’s logical structure, interprets the central concepts appearing therein, and explains why Fazang might have found plausible his argument’s premises. Specific discussion points include: the non-duality of existence and emptiness; relations between causes and their conditions; the meaning of creation and identity; connections with the ti-yong paradigm; Fazang’s analogy of the ten coins. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of Fazang’s metaphysics for contemporary discussions of substance and ontological foundations.
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As autonomous systems become responsible for more complex decisions, it is crucial to consider how these systems will respond in situations wherein they must make potentially controversial decisions without input from users. While... more
As autonomous systems become responsible for more complex decisions, it is crucial to consider how these systems will respond in situations wherein they must make potentially controversial decisions without input from users. While previous literature has suggested that users prefer machinelike systems that act to promote the greater good, little research has focused on how the humanlikeness of an agent influences how moral decisions are perceived. We ran two online studies where participants and an automated agent made a decision in an adapted trolley problem. Our results conflicted with previous literature as they did not support the idea that humanlike agents are trusted in a manner analogous to humans in moral dilemmas. Conversely, our study did support the importance for trust of shared moral view between users and systems. Further investigation is necessary to clarify how humanlikeness and moral view interact to form impressions of trust in a system.
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I served as Secretary for the Desegregation Advisory Committee (DAC) for Huntsville City Schools (HCS) during the academic year 2022-2023. This material, under the headings "Discipline" and "Faculty," is content I wrote for the 2022-2023... more
I served as Secretary for the Desegregation Advisory Committee (DAC) for Huntsville City Schools (HCS) during the academic year 2022-2023. This material, under the headings "Discipline" and "Faculty," is content I wrote for the 2022-2023 DAC Annual Report. The content was meant to be part of a Court-ordered annual report that the DAC provides to the Superintendent for HCS. The purpose of this document is to make available to the public some of the reporting I provided as a member of the 2022-2023 DAC.
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Comparing Buddhist and contemporary analytic views about mereological composition reveals significant dissimilarities about the purposes that constrain successful answers to mereological questions, the kinds of considerations taken to be... more
Comparing Buddhist and contemporary analytic views about mereological composition reveals significant dissimilarities about the purposes that constrain successful answers to mereological questions, the kinds of considerations taken to be probative in justifying those answers, and the value of mereological inquiry. I develop these dissimilarities by examining three questions relevant to those who deny the existence of composite wholes. The first is a question of justification: What justifies denying the existence of composite wholes as more reasonable than affirming their existence? The second is a question of ontology: Under what conditions are many partless individuals arranged composite-wise? The third is a question of reasonableness: Why, if there are no composites available to experience, do “the folk” find it reasonable to believe there are? I motivate each question, sketch some analytic answers for each, develop in more detail answers from the Theravādin Buddhist scholar Buddh...
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ABSTRACT This paper examines the Huayan teaching of the six characteristics as presented in the Rafter Dialogue from Fazang’s Treatise on the Five Teachings. The goal is to make the teaching accessible to those with minimal training in... more
ABSTRACT This paper examines the Huayan teaching of the six characteristics as presented in the Rafter Dialogue from Fazang’s Treatise on the Five Teachings. The goal is to make the teaching accessible to those with minimal training in Buddhist philosophy, and especially for those who aim to engage with the extensive question-and-answer section of the Rafter Dialogue. The method for achieving this goal is threefold: first, contextualizing Fazang’s account of the characteristics with earlier Buddhist attempts to theorize the relationships between wholes and their parts; second, explicating the meaning Fazang likely attributes to each of the six characteristics; third, situating the characteristics as explicated within Fazang’s broader metaphysical framework.
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I consider three explanatory strategies from recent systems biology that are driven by mathematics as much as mechanistic detail. Analysis of differential equations drives the first strategy; topological analysis of network motifs drives... more
I consider three explanatory strategies from recent systems biology that are driven by mathematics as much as mechanistic detail. Analysis of differential equations drives the first strategy; topological analysis of network motifs drives the second; mathematical theorems from control engineering drive the third. I also distinguish three abstraction types: aggregations, which simplify by condensing details; generalizations, which simplify by generalizing details; and structurations, which simplify by contextualizing details. Using a common explanandum as a reference point—namely, the robust perfect adaptation of chemotaxis in Escherichia coli—I argue that each strategy targets various abstraction types to different mechanistic details.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2017v70n2p39As tecnologias de Cyborg e próteses enquadram abordagens pós-humanistas proeminentes para entender a natureza da raça. Mas esses quadros lutam para acomodar os fenômenos da passagem racial e... more
http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2017v70n2p39As tecnologias de Cyborg e próteses enquadram abordagens pós-humanistas proeminentes para entender a natureza da raça. Mas esses quadros lutam para acomodar os fenômenos da passagem racial e da estacionança racial, e sua orientação pós-humanista encobre distinções úteis entre os seres humanos racializados e seus contextos sociais. Defendemos, em vez disso, uma abordagem humanista da raça, entendendo a hierarquia racial como uma tecnologia industrial. Nossa abordagem acomoda a passagem racial e a estacionararia. Integra toda uma série de pesquisas em todas as disciplinas. Também é útil distinguir entre os motivos da racialização e condições que facilitam os impactos dessa racialização.
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Abstract:This essay explicates the metaphor of counting ten coins as it appears in Fazang's Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan. The goal is to transform Fazang's inexact and obscure mentions of the metaphor into something... more
Abstract:This essay explicates the metaphor of counting ten coins as it appears in Fazang's Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan. The goal is to transform Fazang's inexact and obscure mentions of the metaphor into something that is clearer and more precise. The method for achieving this goal is threefold: first, by presenting Fazang's version of the metaphor as improving upon prior efforts by Zhiyan and Ŭisang to interpret a brief stanza in the Avataṁsaka Sūtra; second, by providing textual evidence to support this interpretation; and third, by contrasting this interpretation with alternatives from Francis Cook as well as Yasuo Deguchi and Katsuhiko Sano.
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The theistic argument from beauty has what we call an ‘evil twin’, the argument from ugliness. The argument yields either what we call ‘atheist win’, or, when faced with aesthetic theodicies, ‘agnostic tie’ with the argument from beauty.
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“A neglected topic, of particular interest to me, refers to the benefits that different representation formats, and especially visual formats in contrast to sentential/linguistic ones, provide for epistemically oriented cognitive... more
“A neglected topic, of particular interest to me, refers to the benefits that different representation formats, and especially visual formats in contrast to sentential/linguistic ones, provide for epistemically oriented cognitive activities such as hypothesis generation and discovery, data aggregation and organization, model construction and simulation, and explanation of various kinds. Visual representations are so prominent and relevant for biology – and especially, I think, for systems biology approaches – that they are often objects of special interest… Our understanding of the role of visuals in biological practice, from both philosophy and cognitive science, has not kept pace with these developments. This is, I think, an underappreciated area for philosophical inquiry – and an attractive area too, if you enjoy putting visuals into papers and presentations.”
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Mark Siderits defends two views about Buddhism. The first is that the Buddhist denial of independently-existing selves is best understood as a kind of reductionism, according to which wholes, by virtue of being nothing more than their... more
Mark Siderits defends two views about Buddhism. The first is that the Buddhist denial of independently-existing selves is best understood as a kind of reductionism, according to which wholes, by virtue of being nothing more than their atomic parts, are conventionally real but ultimately unreal. The second is that the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness is not a metaphysical thesis, according to which nothing has an intrinsic nature of its own, but rather a semantic thesis, according to which no statement about ultimate reality is true. This chapter uses central metaphysical doctrines from the Huayan School of Chinese Buddhism to develop, in contrast, a non-reductionist approach to wholes and a metaphysical construal of emptiness.
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The dissertation examines two putative explanations from statistical mechanics with the aim of understanding the nature and role of idealizations in those accounts, namely, the Yang-Lee account of phase transitions and the Boltzmannian... more
The dissertation examines two putative explanations from statistical mechanics with the aim of understanding the nature and role of idealizations in those accounts, namely, the Yang-Lee account of phase transitions and the Boltzmannian account of irreversible behavior. Like most explanations in physics, these accounts involve idealizations to some extent. Many idealized explanations hold out the hope that the idealizations can be removed or eliminated with further work. However, the idealizations that occur in the accounts of phase transitions and irreversibility are ineliminable. The only way (in principle) to obtain a description – let alone an explanation – of these phenomena is to invoke various idealizing assumptions. Ineliminably idealized explanations are not well-understood from a philosophical point of view. Indeed, most philosophers of science would probably hold that no idealizations are ineliminable. The dissertation argues that this view is mistaken, showing where and w...
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ING: We abstract from property P of a physical system x iff: in our corresponding scientific model, P is not included. IDEALIZING: We idealize a property P of a physical system x iff: in our corresponding model, P is not included and P is... more
ING: We abstract from property P of a physical system x iff: in our corresponding scientific model, P is not included. IDEALIZING: We idealize a property P of a physical system x iff: in our corresponding model, P is not included and P is replaced by a different property Q which is not exhibited by x. (These definitions omit Ducheyne's symbolism but otherwise follow his wording.) According to Ducheyne's definitions, there is a difference between a model for a planet not including the planet's actual temperature and the model including an incorrect temperature: one obtains the former model by merely abstracting from the planet's actual temperature, whereas one obtains the latter by idealizing the planet's temperature. Whether Ducheyne understands properties as physical parameters or physical quantities is unclear. (Following Frederick Suppe (The Semantic Conception of Theories and Scientific Realism (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989): 93), physical para...
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Research Interests: Philosophy and Analysis
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Lecture notes on the history of Greek philosophy before Socrates. Figures include Hesiod, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophon, Parmenides, Empedocles, Zeno, Melissus, Heraclitus, Democritus, Georgias. Revised and Expanded from 2011.
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Lecture Notes - History of Philosophy - Medieval Europe
Aquinas on: Being, Existence, and Essence; Causation; Being and Goodness; Five Ways
Aquinas on: Being, Existence, and Essence; Causation; Being and Goodness; Five Ways
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Lecture Notes - History of Philosophy - Ancient Greece
Selections from Plato's Dialogues: Meno, Phaedo, Republic 5-7, Parmenides, Timeaus
Selections from Plato's Dialogues: Meno, Phaedo, Republic 5-7, Parmenides, Timeaus
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Lecture Notes - History of Philosophy - Ancient Greece Hesiod, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Melissus, Democritus, Georgias Note: A revised and expanded version of these notes is available at... more
Lecture Notes - History of Philosophy - Ancient Greece
Hesiod, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Melissus, Democritus, Georgias
Note: A revised and expanded version of these notes is available at https://www.academia.edu/42336220/The_Presocratics
Hesiod, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Melissus, Democritus, Georgias
Note: A revised and expanded version of these notes is available at https://www.academia.edu/42336220/The_Presocratics
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This is a supplemental chapter for Debra Jackson and Paul Newberry, Critical Thinking: A User’s Manual (Wadsworth 2012).
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When we move past the hype surrounding fourth generation industrial technology (4gIT) and attend to its nature, we should expect 4gIT to exacerbate, rather than alleviate, conditions that tend to ensnare us in dukkha. Here I probe the... more
When we move past the hype surrounding fourth generation industrial technology (4gIT) and attend to its nature, we should expect 4gIT to exacerbate, rather than alleviate, conditions that tend to ensnare us in dukkha. Here I probe the nature of 4gIT with brief case studies about the Eyeborg, the DIY pancreas system, Google's Pixel Buds, and their role in exacerbating experiences of inherent separation from others. I examine how cravings for self-continuity (bhavana) and self-discontinuity (vibhana) connect experiences of separation from others with dukkha. I also contrast my techno-pessimism with David Loy's Buddhism-inspired value-neutrality, and with an increasingly popular pessimism grounded upon observations about the so-called attention economy.
(Comments much appreciated by October 22 2017. Thank you!)
(Comments much appreciated by October 22 2017. Thank you!)
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Life scientists increasingly rely upon abstraction-based modeling and reasoning strategies for managing and understanding biological phenomena. We introduce the notion of constraint-based reasoning as a fruitful tool for conceptualizing... more
Life scientists increasingly rely upon abstraction-based modeling and reasoning strategies for managing and understanding biological phenomena. We introduce the notion of constraint-based reasoning as a fruitful tool for conceptualizing some of these developments. One important role of mathematical abstractions is to guide biological research by narrowing search spaces for possible explanatory models. In such cases, formal constraints can organize hypothesis search by defining a set of plausible causal models. Sometimes, however, delineating the space of possibilities using formal constraints can itself be explanatory, by clarifying general dependency-relations and patterning between functions and structures. These constraint-based explanations differ from mechanistic strategies in important respects. While mechanistic explanations emphasize change-relating causal features, constraint-based explanations emphasize formal dependencies and generic organizational features that are relatively independent of lower-level changes in causal details. We use the notion of constraint-based explanation to identify features common to otherwise different philosophical accounts of abstract explanatory strategies in biology. Our distinction between mechanistic and constraint-based explanations is pragmatically motivated by the wish to understand scientific practice. Delineating the affordances and assumptions of different explanatory questions and strategies also helps to clarify tensions between diverging scientific practices and the innovative potentials in their combination. The life sciences increasingly rely upon abstraction-based modeling and reasoning strategies for managing and understanding biological complexity. New experimental techniques and theoretical insights encourage mathematical and computational aids for interpreting and organizing biological data. Meanwhile, explanatory ideals from engineering, systems theory, and physics influence new approaches – such as systems biology – that aim, in part, to identify and formalize so-called organizing or design principles. These principles are typically defined at a high level of
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What are you going to do with that degree? If you're a Liberal Arts major, I have an answer. And it's not "I don't know," "Teach," "Law school," or "Go to grad school." (This is a longer version of a talk given for the Second Year... more
What are you going to do with that degree? If you're a Liberal Arts major, I have an answer. And it's not "I don't know," "Teach," "Law school," or "Go to grad school."
(This is a longer version of a talk given for the Second Year Experience in Autumn 2012 at University of Alabama in Huntsville.)
(This is a longer version of a talk given for the Second Year Experience in Autumn 2012 at University of Alabama in Huntsville.)
Research Interests:
College majors are well chosen in proportion to their return on assets for living well. University education is not about making yourself into a vessel, for use by others, in the way that most enhances your power as a consumer. Instead,... more
College majors are well chosen in proportion to their return on assets for living well. University education is not about making yourself into a vessel, for use by others, in the way that most enhances your power as a consumer. Instead, university education is about coming to know what makes your life valuable, in a way that most enhances your power to find satisfaction and realize your potential. This is why the liberal arts are valuable: they empower us to live well.
(This is a write-up from a presentation to the AddRan College of Liberal Arts at Texas Christian University, January 2018.)
(This is a write-up from a presentation to the AddRan College of Liberal Arts at Texas Christian University, January 2018.)