Scientific Realism

The paper examines ontological presuppositions and epistemological branches of Peace and Conflict Studies. It describes the narrower use of the concepts ‗ontology‘ and ‗epistemology‘ as sub-branch and branch of philosophy respectively and later focus on their meanings in the context of particular areas of inquiry. It highlights the most basic of the core field definition and distinction issues in Peace and Conflict Studies—what peace is; the nature, causes, outbreak, and dynamics of conflict; and the means for resolving conflict and building sustainable peace. It presents and offers answers to key ontological questions: what exist, in what form do they exist, what are the conditions under which they exist, what is their relationships with other things that are said to exist regarding the field of Peace and Conflict Studies. Furthermore, the paper reviews ways of knowing, understanding, explaining and justifying the ontological presuppositions. Thus it discusses the three epistemological branches of Peace and Conflict Studies proposed by Johan Galtung—empirical peace studies, critical peace studies, and constructive peace studies—and their implications for values, empirical data and theory. In light of this epistemology, the author posits that values, followed by data, take preeminence in the applied Social Sciences field of Peace and Conflict Studies.

Ian Hacking’s Representing and Intervening (1983) is often credited to be one of the first works that focused on the role of experimentation in philosophy of science, initiating a movement which is sometimes called the “philosophy of experiment” (Hacking, 1988) or “new experimentalism” (Ackermann, 1989). Moreover, in the 1980s, a number of other movements and scholars also started to focus on the role of experimentation and instruments in science, ranging from science studies (Pickering, 1984; Shapin & Schaffer, 1985; Latour, 1987), Hans Radder (1984) and postphenomenology (Ihde, 1979). A philosophical study of experiments seems thus to be an invention of the 1980s, with Hacking being one of its central figures.This article aims to assess this historical claim by Hacking and others. First of all, from a broader perspective on the history of philosophy, this invention narrative is incorrect, since experiment has been a topic for philosophers before, ranging from Ernst Mach (1905), Pi...

En el presente trabajo analizo críticamente dos estrategias empleadas para esclarecer la naturaleza modal de las estructuras tal como son concebidas por el realismo estructural óntico (reo) en su versión eliminativista: los patrones reales de Ladyman y Ross (2007) y las leyes y simetrías de French (2014). Ofrezco argumentos para mostrar que ambas resultan incapaces de brindar una caracterización de las estructuras como entidades inherentemente modales. Ese resultado impone serias dificultades al proyecto de presentar el reo como una posición realista acerca del mundo físico.

This is the penultimate typescript of Chapter 2 _of Scientific Communication: Practices, Theories, and Pedagogies_, edited by Han Yu and Kathy Northcut. The chapter attempts to contribute to our understanding of scientific communication by exploring the ethics of scientific authorship. Specifically, we explore the historical, practical and theoretical implications of the (non)decision of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), the nation's highest ethical office, not to include authorship issues in its definition of research misconduct.


Formed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1992, the ORI defines research misconduct as "fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism" (FFP). However, a host of other authorship issues in addition to plagiarism are important in science (e.g., authorship credit, author order, etc.) and are regularly encountered and often violated by scientists. However, our research also reveals that there are many sources of ethics in scientific communication-some in conflict with each other, just as the ethics are often in tension (e.g., the drive for originality and credit vs. the need to collaborate and share)-and that scientific organizations and journals, combined with social, personal, and other systems of morality and values, create "ethical lines and fields of force." It is within these shifting ethical fields of force, rather than the power of the ORI, that scientists work every day. (In this, we recognize of both Actor-Network Theory, and posthumanistic understandings of the limitations of human agency in continuously emergent and mostly unpredictable ecologies, here applied specifically scientific/authorship ethics.) 


The ORI's decision to exclude authorship ethics other than plagiarism provides a unique opportunity to interrogate the supposed and real power of the ORI; to begin to map the ethical lines and fields of force that impinge on scientists; and to explore the role and implications of ethics in authorship as a fundamental concern in scientific research as well as communication.

The sciences provide our major source of epistemic progress but philosophers of science disagree about the nature of this progress.  Instrumentalists maintain that progress consists only of an increasing ability to achieve specific ends; constructive empiricists insist that progress is limited to results that are observable by our unaided senses; scientific realists hold that progress includes a growing body of truths, or approximate truths, about nature, both observable and unobservable.  In this paper I focus on two kinds of progress that have often been neglected.  Besides serving as attempts to give a correct description of some domain, scientific theories function as tools that guide research and thereby enhance our ability to study nature.  As a result, theory construction has often led us to study domains that had not previously been imagined.  In addition, our enhanced ability to conduct research—including exploration of these newly recognized domains—results in a growing set of appropriately justified beliefs some of which may be true.  I explain the notion of an appropriately justified belief and argue we have reasons to believe that whatever truths about nature we have discovered so far, there is a great deal more that still eludes us but that we can pursue.

Neuroscientist Donald Hoffman proposed a bold theory-that objects do not exist independently of us perceiving them and that all that really exists is conscious agents. In this critical review, Leslie Allan examines the three core components of Hoffman's new idealism: Fitness Beats Truth (FBT) Theorem, Interface Theory of Perception (ITP) and Conscious Realism. Allan proposes solutions to linguistic absurdities suffered by Hoffman's idealism before considering its most serious problems. These include oversimplifications and misunderstandings of evolutionary theory, self-refutation, heuristic sterility and dependence on the successes of scientific realism.

Medições são atividades ubíquas, mas não unívocas. Seus componentes, unidades e resultados são tão familiares que escondem os esforços da história do seu nascimento: são convenções que se camuflam nos fenômenos. Seus processos conceituais são colas entre a experimentação e a teorização. Nos contextos em que são aplicadas, medições atuam como sinônimos de padronização, de controle e de confiabilidade. Mas são também sinônimos de conhecimento? Em função do seu inegável valor científico, o medir pode ser visto também como précondição do saber, ou ainda, como expressão máxima do conhecimento sobre um assunto. Sobre esse último ponto, pode-se argumentar que uma medição fornece representações numéricas válidas, exatas e objetivas, sendo representações fiéis do que está em alvo. Indagar se essas visões são corretas é iniciar uma busca pelas características epistemológicas que aproximam as medições do conhecimento, tema central desta tese. Em sentido amplo, esta tese versa sobre as relações entre as práticas de medida e a produção, justificação e o aprimoramento do conhecimento científico. Mais precisamente, sobre algumas propostas que visam compreender diferentes faces desses vínculos, isto é, abordagens epistêmicas sobre as medições. Em acepção histórico-disciplinar, essas propostas fomentam uma epistemologia sobre as medições, uma área de investigação filosófica relativamente recente. O principal objetivo desta tese é apresentar uma coleção de problemas a fim de chamar a atenção para o campo, pois embora venha recebendo cada vez mais atenção, permanece pouco discutido nos círculos filosóficos. Metodologicamente pensado para realizar um convite às discussões, o trabalho promove uma incursão por alguns dos temas da epistemologia sobre as medições, ressaltando suas conexões com discussões na epistemologia e na filosofia da ciência atual. Organizado em três partes, o trabalho fornece uma investigação propedêutica sobre o que são medições e alguns problemas epistêmicos tradicionalmente levantados sobre elas. Discute também como algumas posturas empiristas do último século se propuseram a pensar sobre esses problemas e alguns desafios levantados a elas. Finalmente, discorre sobre alguns projetos desse século e que estão em curso, chamando a atenção para o caminho profícuo em aproximá-los com os debates sobre a objetividade da ciência.

Dualist and Reductionist theories of mind disagree about whether or not consciousness can be reduced to a state of or function of the brain. They assume, however, that the contents of consciousness are separate from the external physical world as-perceived. According to the present paper this assumption has no foundation either in everyday experience or in science. Drawing on evidence for perceptual projection in both interoceptive and exteroceptive sense modalities, the case is made that the physical world as-perceived is a construct of perceptual processing and, therefore, part of the contents of consciousness. A finding which requires a Reflexive rather than a Dualist or Reductionist model of how consciousness relates to the brain and the physical world. The physical world as-perceived may, in turn be thought of as a biologically useful model of the world as described by physics. Redrawing the boundaries of consciousness to include the physical world as-perceived undermines the conventional separation of the 'mental' from the physical', and with it the very foundation of the Dualist-Reductionist debate. The alternative Reflexive model departs radically from current conventions, with consequences for many aspects of consciousness theory and research. Some of the consequences which bear on the internal consistency and intuitive plausibility of the model are explored, e.g. the causal sequence in perception, representationalism, a suggested resolution of the Realism versus Idealism debate, and the way manifest differences between physical events as-perceived and other conscious events (images, dreams, etc.) are to be construed.

The distinction between the manifest and the scientific image of man-in-the-world is widely seen as crucial to Wilfrid Sellars's philosophical work. The present essay agrees with this view. I contend, however, that precisely because the distinction is important, we should not hurry to a quick and superficial understanding of it. I identify several oversimplifications that can be found in the literature on the topic and argue that they are at least partly rooted in too rigid a view of the role that the two-image-distinction plays in Sellars's philosophy. I show that this rigid approach is quite common in the secondary literature, either explicitly or by implication. Afterwards, I present a more cautious, flexible approach to the problem of the two images and explain why it is fruitful on the basis of textual evidence, along with the overall advantages of interpreting Sellars's thought as a whole. Keywords manifest image models scientific image Wilfrid Sellars

Hace unos meses, un amigo y colega, profesor en una universidad española, escribía un tuit que borró al día siguiente, por alguna razón que desconozco. El tuit preguntaba: "¿Qué idea filosófica es tan claramente falsa que muy probablemente ni siquiera el filósofo que la propuso se la creía?". Él mismo comenzaba con una respuesta: "Kant: el mundo en sí es incognoscible". Seguían otras variopintas añadidas por otros tuiteros, como éstas: "Berkeley: cuando dejo de percibir una cosa, ésta sigue existiendo porque Dios la percibe", "Nietzsche: el eterno retorno", "Nietzsche: no hay hechos, solo interpretaciones", "Putnam: no hay distinción entre hechos y valores", "Latour: Ramsés II no pudo morir de tuberculosis porque el bacilo de Koch fue descubierto (construido socialmente) en el siglo XIX". Yo añadí una menos clara quizás, aunque no para mí: "Van Fraassen: nuestras teorías científicas actuales tienen éxito no porque nos proporcionen verdades aproximadas sobre entidades inobservables, sino porque las que no tenían éxito predictivo las hemos abandonado". Y al día siguiente me quedé con las ganas de añadir otra: "Vattimo: el adiós a la verdad es la base misma de la democracia", o bien, del mismo autor, "La diferencia entre verdadero y falso es siempre una diferencia entre interpretaciones". Pues bien, el realismo es la teoría filosófica que explica por qué todas estas ideas son falsas. Siendo esto así, y dada la popularidad que han llegado a alcanzar algunas de ellas, es importante conocer qué sostiene el realismo y por qué ha sido tan cuestionado desde hace ya dos siglos al menos.

El 12 de noviembre de 1930 el físico Max Planck pronunció la conferencia "Positivismo y mundo externo real", que constituye una defensa del realismo en filosofía de la ciencia. Aquí se ofrece la traducción del texto de Planck y un prólogo que identifica los problemas tratados, el marco de la conferencia y su lugar en la obra del autor. El objetivo de la física no son nuestras observaciones de la naturaleza inanimada. Contra lo que sostiene el positivismo, la ciencia física resultaría inexplicable si no se admite la existencia de un mundo externo real. En tal caso no podríamos dirimir sobre la verdad de las teorías científicas ni sobre el progreso en la ciencia. Planck sostiene por ello que el mundo físico es independiente de nosotros aun cuando el físico lo conozca de manera mediata e hipotética a través de sus mediciones. La causalidad, por su parte, alberga una determinación de la que no está exenta ni siquiera la libertad humana.

In this unit, students will be introduced to the basic concepts, questions, thinkers, and history of philosophy of science. The unit begins with the historical background. In this section of the unit, students will learn about various changes that science has undergone, particularly in the shift from European medieval science to early modern science. Students will then confront a series of classic questions in philosophy of science, including: How do we go from specific observations to general scientific claims? What is reality? Does science describe reality? Is there such a thing as scientific progress (if so, how does it work)? What are the limits to science? Is science value-neutral? Does science have a male bias?
Throughout, students will learn that there are many ways of thinking about science, and that there is no consensus on the way it works, the nature of the claims it makes, or its value. They will also have opportunities to connect their understanding of science and philosophy of science to their own lives, especially in the lesson on feminist critiques of science. The other lessons have practical import as well, particularly when it comes to gaining a better understanding of common conversations around science – for example, conversations on claims about scientific discoveries; the relationship between science and other ways of knowing (such as religion); and the relationship between science, society, and their personal lives. Students will also have opportunities to develop their philosophical research skills, particularly in a research workshop and a work period.

Zusammenfassung. Hintergrund und Zielsetzung: Der methodologischen Untersuchung wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisprozesse unter Einbezug ubersinnlicher Wahrnehmungen stehen Herausforderungen von der Seite der Wissenschaftsphilosophie als auch von der Weltanschauung des Naturalismus entgegen. Ein Blick auf gemeinsame methodische Grundlagen kann Grenzen abbauen und Vorurteile auflosen. Material und Methoden: Durch einen Bezug auf eine universelle Erkenntniswissenschaft und einer darauf beruhenden Wissenschaftsmethodik wird auf Wege aufmerksam gemacht, durch welche der Blick auf Gemeinsamkeiten konventioneller Wissenschaftsauffassung und anthroposophischer Geisteswissenschaft gerichtet werden kann. Dadurch kann die Bereitschaft gefordert werden, vorhandene Vorannahmen zumindest in Frage zu stellen oder zu diskutieren. Ergebnisse: Die Analyse der Kriterien der Wissenschaftlichkeit der modernen Wissenschaftsphilosophie, einschliesslich Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Wissenschaftssoziologie, erg...

I denne teksten fremstiller jeg en dialektikk som fører til en nyansert versjon av vitenskapelig realisme kalt 'beskjeden realisme'. Den dialektikken begynner med dagligdagse intuisjoner om realisme, besvarer Larry Laudans argumenter fra vitenskapshistorien, og ender opp med en rekke kvalifikasjoner som gjør posisjonen robust.

In "Scientific Realism and the Issue of Variability in Behavior," J. F. Arocha (2021) proposes a (hylo)-realist method of studying behaviour and consciousness. Arocha adopts the thesis that reality consists of concrete (determinate) things, is orderly and lawful, and that it has an emergent character. I propose that furthering the critical power of the realist position requires the adoption of the thesis that human societies also have emergent properties and are determined by historically specific laws.

In this thesis, I propose a radical reframing of the analytic scientific realism debate via the phenomenological concept of the life-world. I provide motivation for examining science’s situatedness by interrogating the observable aspects of the world. In so doing, I propose to drop any notions of ecumenical truth and reality in the frame of the debate. The case study of autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) is explored to demonstrate what this suggested reframing implies for scientific practice.

I offer that the best construal of the observables is the concept of the life-world (Edmund Husserl’s lebenswelt) from continental phenomenology. I perform a series of analytic tweaks on the concept and define it, for the frame of this dissertation, to be the world of immediate – yet theory-laden and prism-mediated – experience as cashed out by a subject’s perceiving capacities. The main improvement of the life-world to traditional analytic construals of the observables is that it captures extra-linguistic elements, allowing us to interrogate these crucial facets of science that are not language- and theory-based strictu sensu.

Following I highlight the life-world’s pluralistic dimensions. Theoretically, I do this by defending conceptual scheme pluralism against certain tendencies in the analytic philosophy of language, and then apply this defence to life-worlds. Turning to extant cases of life-world difference, I investigate the case study of autism spectrum conditions. I argue that what this case brings to the fore is first our being compelled to recognise the autistic life-world as ‘real and true’ in the way we take the neurologically typical life-world to be and, second, that autism spectrum conditions treatment should be oriented towards this life-world, in the sense of attempting to maximize happiness and well-being in its own terms. Unfortunately, this is found to be in stark contrast with the extant ASC-related treatment situation.

Finally, I claim that we should philosophically be haunted less by any claims of ecumenical Truth and Reality and related, somewhat stale metaphysical issues typically associated with the debate. Rather, it is both more philosophically interesting and humanitarianly urgent to interrogate how what a science takes to be true shapes the practice itself and how it affects human lives associated with it.

Theoretically, my philosophical position abides first and foremost by life-world incorrigibility and pluralism and is thus appropriately named pluralistic incorrigible realism (PIR). ‘True’ is here taken to cash out what is incorrigible for a perceiving subject, but whatever notion of truth may arise herein is only in the form of a (subjective or intersubjective) admittance within the confines of a life-world.

The motivation to write a paper on the general nature of science comes from the scientific nature of Quran, which has been a guidance and help in revealing that science is an ontological and teleological construct which the Quran supports. A much-needed discussion of science had to be done because the trend among the people today suggest anything remotely sounding science has become a substituting value for religion and God. People have started believing rather blindly, in science without really understanding what it is, how it works and its limitations. What is science and what is the purpose of science? This paper explains the answers of the question and help reader understand the difference between science and pseudoscience which often people mistake as one. It explains the difference from example of macroevolution, single common ancestor and natural selection. The discussion also elaborates on the essential foundations of science that makes science, science. At the end, the paper elaborates why science cannot be used to ascertain moral truths. The discussion has been analytical in nature rooted in classic literature of philosophy of science and sociology. The readers will come to appreciate the fine principles of science and it’s limitations in revealing scientific truths.

ABSTRACT By offering a historical overview of the problem of universals and by focusing in the contributions of the medieval philosopher John Duns Scotus and the founder of American Pragmatism, Charles Peirce, the article introduces Peirce's insight on the problem. Such insight is tracked by explaining the connections between Aristotle, Duns Scotus, and Peirce. Peirce's account was named by himself 'Scholastic Realism' , and such Realism of universals aims to provide a feasible account for contemporary Scientific Realism. The problem of universals, after such a reading, appears as a continuous and vibrant issue that defines both traditional and contemporary philosophical problems.

El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar los problemas de la filosofía de la ciencia que enfrentan los investigadores del cambio climático. El tópico de la carga teórica de la observación aparece dentro del campo como una indispensabilidad de modelos teóricos en la detección y atribución del cambio climático. La infra-determinación empírica de los modelos se acompaña de una incertidumbre de valores (de series instrumentales y datos proxy) y una incertidumbre estructural, relativa a la especificación de los acoplamientos y forzamientos radiativos. Se examina, además, el realismo de los modelos globales en conexión con su calibración y las proyecciones climáticas.

The  aim  of  this  paper  is  to  show  the  epistemological  problems  that  researchers  of  climate change face. The topic of theory-laden observation appears within the field as an indispensability of theoretical models in detecting and attributing climate change. The empirical underdetermination of models is accompanied by an uncertainty of values (of instrumental series and proxy-data) and a structural uncertainty (relative to couplings and radiative forcings). Finally, the article examines the realism of global climate models in connection with their calibration, deterministic chaos and climate projections.

In this essay, my aim is to analyze Bas van Fraassen's pragmatic solution to two of the traditional problems concerning scientific explanation, namely, rejection and asymmetry. According to his view, an explanation is an answer to some request for information. The emergence of a question, as well as the evaluation of the explanations adduced, depends on considerations about contextual factors. In addition, I will evaluate the pertinence of objections raised by Philip Kitcher and Wesley Salmon against van Fraassen's account. I will argue that their charge is not sound, for it actually misunderstands the role played by context in van Fraassen's account. Although Salmon's and Kitcher's realist commitments motivate the point made by them, I will hold that a pragmatic account of explanation does not commit one to an anti-realist approach to science.

Is it possible to maintain classical logic, stay close to classical semantics, and yet accept that language might be semantically indeterminate? The article gives an affirmative answer by Ramsifying classical semantics, which yields a new semantic theory that remains much closer to classical semantics than supervaluationism but which at the same time avoids the problematic classical presupposition of semantic determinacy. The resulting Ramsey semantics is developed in detail, it is shown to supply a classical concept of truth and to fully support the rules and metarules of classical logic, and it is applied to vague terms as well as to theoretical or open-ended terms from mathematics and science. The theory also demonstrates how diachronic or synchronic interpretational continuity across languages is compatible with semantic indeterminacy.

Can science tell us what’s objectively true? Or is it merely a clever way to cure doubt – to give us something to believe in, whether it’s true or not? In this essay, I look at the pragmatist account of science expounded by Charles Sanders Peirce in his 1877 essay, ‘The Fixation of Belief’. Against Peirce, I argue that science does not come naturally to our species, nor does the doubting open-mindedness upon which its practice relies. To the extent that science is successful in ‘curing’ doubt, it’s because it tracks the real state of the world; and I argue that Peirce himself – his pragmatist narrative notwithstanding – is implicitly committed to this view as well.

The Second World War shattered the self-belief of the idealistic, utopian views of international politics that prevailed during the inter-war period. This gave rise to the political theory of Realism that has since dominated the fields of International Relations and academia right up until the end of the Cold War.

Naturalizing Badiou offers a naturalist critique and revision of Alain Badiou's philosophy. It argues against some core elements of his systematic philosophy, considering them unacceptable for the naturalist philosopher. At the same time, however, it highlights how Badiou's broader and ambitious metaphilosophical commitments can fruitfully supplement the orthodox naturalism grounding some contemporary stances in the philosophy of science. This goal is pursued through staging an encounter of Badiou's mathematical ontology and theory of truth with contemporary trends in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science. Targeting Badiou's inability to elucidate the link between the empirical and the ontological, and his residual reliance on a Heideggerian project of fundamental ontology, the book articulates a particular understanding of what realism and naturalism should commit us to. It then presents a creative fusion of Badiou's attention to metamathematical results with a structural-informational metaphysics, proposing a 'matherialism' that unites the more daring speculative insights of the former with the naturalist and empiricist commitments motivating the latter.

More than a quarter of century has elapsed since Hilary Putnam first proposed his famous ‘no-miracle’ argument in ‘What is mathematical truth?’ (1975). The argument, also known as the ‘Ultimate argument’ (van Fraassen 1980) is still widely discussed and is considered by many, just as Putnam believed, to be the major argument in favour of scientific realism (Leplin 1997, Psillos 1999). In this paper, I will review various forms of the argument and show them to be unconvincing from a naturalist’s point of view. My main point is that scientific realism conceived as a scientific explanation of the success of science is indefensible, not because other – ‘better’ - explanations are available or because the no-miracle argument is logically flawed or because examples of false empirically successful theories can be produced, but because scientific realism is a philosophical position and cannot possibly count as a scientific explanation of any fact. Essentially, I want to question the scientific explanatory force of truth and, at the same time, argue against a form of naturalism which construes scientific realism as a scientific hypothesis.

We propose to read Francis Bacon's doctrine of the idols of the mind as an investigation firmly entrenched in his mental-medicinal concerns and we argue that an important role therein is played by the imagination. Looking at the ways in which the imagination serves to pinpoint several crucial aspects of the idolic mind permits us to signal the explicit or implicit cross-references between what in Bacon's tree of knowledge appear as distinct branches: the various faculties and their arts; the mind, the body, and their league; natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and the philosophy of man. The consequence of this rich picture of the diagnosis of the mind is an equally rich conception of the cure, which comprises both epistemic and physiological aspects. We extract the features of this integrated view out of Bacon's epistemological and medical natural historical writings, which we propose to read in tandem. We also propose a number of sources for Bacon's views on the imagination, whose variety accounts for the multivalent, sometimes elusive, but surely pervasive role of the imagination in the Baconian diagnosis and cure of the mind.

The effect of the individual analyst on research findings can create a credibility problem for qualitative approaches from the perspective of evaluative criteria utilized in quantitative psychology. This paper explicates the ways in which objectivity and reliability are understood in qualitative analysis conducted from within three distinct epistemological frameworks: realism, contextual constructionism, and radical constructionism. It is argued that quality criteria utilized in quantitative psychology are appropriate to the evaluation of qualitative analysis only to the extent that it is conducted within a naive or scientific realist framework. The discussion is illustrated with reference to the comparison of two independent grounded theory analyses of identical material. An implication of this illustration is to identify the potential to develop a radical constructionist strand of grounded theory.

Resumen. El transhumanismo es un movimiento filosófico que propone el Mejoramiento Humano (Human Enhancement) como medio para lograr un estado evolutivo más fructífero del Homo Sapiens al que denomina Transhumano. En el presente documento a modo de recuento y contribución teórica del pensamiento transhumanista se responderá primero a la pregunta qué es el Transhumanismo, así como se definirán los conceptos propios de su filosofía; y segundo, se planteará cuál es el proyecto que posee.

Palabras clave: transhumanismo, posthumanismo, human enhancement, tecnología, futurismo, filosofía

Interactions between archaeology and philosophy are traced, from the ‘New Archaeology’s’ use of ideas from logical empiricism, the subsequent loss of confidence in such ideas, the falsificationist alternative, the rise of ‘scientific realism’, and the influence of the ‘new’ philosophies of science of the 1960s on post-processual archaeology. Some recent ideas from philosophy of science are introduced, and that discipline’s recent trajectory, featuring debate between realists and anti-realists, as well as a return to ‘classic’ concerns about explanation, causation, and laws of nature, is described. Many interactions between philosophy of science and archaeology have been based on a misplaced quest for a single ‘off-the-peg’ methodology or other philosophical framework for archaeology. Historical conditions have fostered the damaging idea that archaeologists have to choose between ‘positivism’ and subjectivism. I conclude by suggesting what kinds of contemporary philosophical work might interest archaeologists, and argue that philosophers should recognize the distinctive heterogeneity of archaeology.

Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994) was one of the foremost twentieth-century philosophers of science. Although he attained infamy by embracing cultural relativism and by providing a searing critique of the claims of science, there has been, to date, no comprehensive critical study of the major themes in Feyerabend’s philosophy. This book rectifies that situation.
The book traces the evolution of Feyerabend’s thought, beginning with his attempt to graft insights from Wittgenstein’s conception of meaning onto Popper’s falsificationist philosophy. The component parts of Feyerabend’s ‘model for the acquisition of knowledge’, the normative aspect of his project, and its roots in a Popperian conception of epistemology, are identified and critically evaluated. Feyerabend’s early work emerges as thoroughly post-Popperian, rather than as a contribution to the historical approach to philosophy of science with which he is usually associated.
In his more notorious later work, notably the 1975 book Against Method, Feyerabend claimed that there was, and should be, no such thing as the scientific method. This ‘epistemological anarchism’ and Feyerabend’s attendant relativism are examined here in the light of his recognition that Against Method was a collage constructed out of his earlier thoughts. The roots of epistemological anarchism are exposed, and the weaknesses of Feyerabend’s later thesis of incommensurability are brought out.
Throughout the book, the influence of Feyerabend’s thought on contemporary philosophers is tracked. The author draws attention to Feyerabend’s exciting but divided legacy. On the one hand, contemporary scientistic philosophers have used his earlier views in a vigorous defence of an uncompromising ‘eliminative’ materialist view of the mind. On the other hand, thinkers influenced by Feyerabend’s later work have begun a humanistic critique of science, scientific myth-making, and scientific claims to knowledge.
The book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of philosophy, methodology, and the social sciences.

'Chess, Imagination and Perceptual Understanding'

Paul Coates

[Forthcoming in Philosophy and Sport, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement: 73, ed. A. O'Hear, Cambridge University Press, 2013.]

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the role of the imagination in the way that human chess players (as contrasted with computers) exercise their understanding of both tactics and strategy. A phenomenological investigation of the way that chess players think reveals important parallels between our grasp of the possibilities latent in a chess position, and our perceptual understanding of the essentially spatial nature of physical objects, a connection that has implications for philosophical theories of perception. Our implicit grasp of the relational structure of the physical world is compatible with the fact that we experience the physical world as comprising a wide range of different kinds of objects, instantiating rich and varied high-level properties, and permeated by value. These findings support a qualified form of structural realism.


KEYWORDS

Chess, Imagination, Causal theory of perception, Structural realism, Intrinsic properties, Grover Maxwell, Phenomenology, Perceptual experience, Spatial representation, Adriaan de Groot.