General Philosophy of Science

Quatrième de couverture:
Réfléchir à la réflexion, penser la pensée et philosopher sur la philosophie, voilà ce que l’on propose de faire ici. Cette démarche est moins formelle qu’il n’y paraît, car interroger la nature et les exigences de la pensée philosophique engage toute une philosophie. Une philosophie qui n’est pas dupe d’elle-même et qui commence par examiner sa propre finitude. « La dernière démarche de la raison, c’est de connaître qu’il y a une infinité de choses qui la surpassent. Elle est bien faible si elle ne va jusque là », disait Pascal. Nous montrons dans un esprit proche que la réflexion est d’autant plus puissante qu’elle reconnaît son impuissance, comme la philosophie authentique doit se savoir doublement bornée, par la pensée scientifique d’une part, et par la pensée mystique d’autre part. Il ne s’agit pas de rabaisser la philosophie, mais au contraire de lui permettre de comprendre ce qui la comprend et de trouver sa juste place dans le champ intellectuel.

Table des matières

Partie I – Enjeux ontologiques, gnoséologiques et axiologiques de la réflexion

1- Fécondité de la réflexion, primat phénoménologique de l’irréfléchi, et horizon métaphysique de la réflexivité philosophique

2- Les insuffisances gnoséologiques de la réflexion et l’horizon scientifique de la philosophie

3- La réflexion sur les valeurs et les valeurs immanentes à la réflexion

Partie II – La religion, la philosophie, la science et la mystique : progrès et bornes de la réflexion théorique

1- Les progrès de la réflexion théorique : la religion, la philosophie et la science

2- Les bornes de la réflexion théorique : la science, la philosophie et la mystique

Partie III – Nature et exigences de la pensée philosophique (étude sur la philosophie et philosophie de la philosophie)

1- Remarques introductives sur le projet de définir la philosophie et d’évaluer les philosophies

2- Les exigences théoriques de la philosophie

3- Les exigences pratiques de la philosophie

4- Bilan sur les questions de définition et d’évaluation

Partie IV – De la réflexivité intradisciplinaire à l’objectivation extradisciplinaire (histoire philosophique et savante de la philosophie)

1- Remarques générales sur les rapports d’une discipline à son historiographie

2- De la sociologie de la philosophie à l’histoire scientifique de la philosophie

Thomas Kuhn defined the characteristics of scientific revolutions based to a large extent upon his knowledge of the first and second Scientific Revolutions. He concluded that scientific revolutions are the result of crises faced by previous theoretical paradigms. However, he missed some important clues of how revolutions develop. Instead of emphasizing the crises, historians should look at the major trends in scientific and human thought prior to the revolutions. By doing so, they could actually gain a better understanding of how scientific revolutions emerge during the normal course of scientific evolution and progress. Instead of defining revolutions by the crises that precede them, revolutions actually emerge from the successes of previous theoretical attempts while each revolution contains the seeds for the next revolution that follows. These seeds eventually grow into the crises that trigger revolutions. Under these circumstances, it can be shown that the space-time revolution of relativity theory was never completed, thus laying the foundations for the next revolution in science. Knowing this, we can consider the possibility that we have already entered a pre-revolutionary period for the Third Scientific Revolution.

The aim of this study is to be able to discover methodological similarities between the emergence of new tactics in the context of tactical changes in football history and the theory of paradigm shifts related to scientific revolutions in the philosophy of science. In this context, it has been argued that whether the changes in football tactics can be regarded as paradigmatic changes or not, taking into consideration certain points, and the question of whether the changes in football tactics can be handled as paradigm shifts in the scientific framework, and it has been analysed whether changes in soccer tactics can be handled as paradigm shifts in the scientific framework. The work's philosophical framework is based on the views of Thomas Kuhn on the philosophy of science in his work titled "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". The paradigm shift in this context is explained in detail through the concepts such as the anomalies in the paradigm, the period of scientific crisis and the scientific revolution. In the second part of the work, it is examined whether the methods (tactics) created to gain success in the football can be taken as paradigm in detail through examples in football history. As a result, it has been shown that football tactics can be regarded as paradigms and tactical changes can be regarded as paradigm shifts. With this study, it was expected to open a new discussion area about the evaluation of sport - especially football - through philosophy.

Spazio e tempo sono grandezze fondamentali della fisica e anche concetti da sempre al centro di riflessioni scientifiche e filosofiche. "Cos'è il tempo? -scriveva Sant'Agostino -Se nessuno me lo chiede lo so; se voglio spiegarlo a uno che me lo chiede non lo so più". Anche il concetto di spazio appare problematico e su di esso scienziati, matematici e filosofi hanno sostenuto punti di vista diversi e talvolta contrapposti.

The concept of a physical field was perhaps the single most important innovation in physics of the nineteenth century, but it has never before been recognized in these or similar terms and very little research has ever been conducted on the historical development of the concept. Newtonian absolute space had seemed necessary for theoretical mechanics a century earlier, but it was insubstantial and thus needed some form of aether to carry forces across the vastness of between interacting material bodies. However, the concept of absolute space was not without problems since all of practical and applied mechanics seemed to depend only on relative space. As physics advanced the concept of aether seemed to take on a bigger and bigger role, but the absolute space that seemed to require aether for substantiation took on less and less of a role in physics. The field concept, on the other hand, only required relative space and offered only a limited substantiality. Within this context, Faraday invented the concept of field to explain electricity and magnetism. At first, the field was thought to carry magnetism along magnetic lines of force, but the concept was extrapolated to cover electric forces. Changes in the mathematical concepts used to describe gravitational interactions, such as Gauss’ theory of gravity, also implied that the field concept better fit the gravity situation then did some form of aether filling an absolute space. But it was to Faraday that all credit for developing field theory must go because he and he alone invented the concept and incorporated it into the physics of electromagnetism. Yet even Faraday’s ideas on the field were influenced by the work of earlier thinkers, especially Roger Boscovich, but the extent to which Faraday’s discovery depended on his precursors is open to debate. L. Pearce Williams’ argues for a more direct link between Faraday and Boscovich, but P.M. Heimann and other’s criticisms are also discussed whenever it is appropriate. Since the main question considered is the importance and extent of Boscovich’s influence on Faraday, only the earlier part of Faraday’s career is covered. This would represent the period up to the mid 1840’s.

Causal reasoning can be seen as the backbone of science in aiming at the attainment of stable, transferable, and replicable knowledge. In the empirical sciences , gathering data helps the researcher in forming an opinion about the investigated causal hypothesis. What makes collected data evidence for or against such a hypothesis is its interpretation in light of the indicative traces the hypothetical causal association entails. In this paper, I will first collect the pivotal causal indicators. I will then revisit the literature on causation and put on different hats in reassessing how theory choice influences the relationships amongst this set of indicators. I will finally argue that, for the precise formulations proposed, utilizing all four indicators (i) presents a resolution to seemingly conflicting perspectives in the causal literature, and (ii) paves the way towards an enriched picture of scientific instruction, prediction, and explanation across the conceptual fences of different causal theories.

Article reprinted in: Madill, A., & Gough, B. (2016). Qualitative research and its place in psychological science. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Methodological issues and strategies in clinical research (4th ed., pp. 437–458). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/14805-028

In discussing the place of diverse qualitative research within psychological science, the authors highlight the potential permeability of the quantitative-qualitative boundary and identify different ways of increasing communication between researchers specializing in different methods. Explicating diversity within qualitative research is facilitated, initially, through documenting the range of qualitative data collection and analytic methods available. The authors then consider the notion of paradigmatic frame and review debates on the current and future positioning of qualitative research within psychological science. In so doing, the authors argue that the different ways in which the concept of paradigm can be interpreted allow them to challenge the idea that diverse research paradigms are prima facie incommensurate. Further, reviewing the ways in which proponents of qualitative research are seeking to reconfigure the links between paradigms helps the authors to envisage how communication between research communities can be enhanced. This critical review allows the authors to systematize possible configurations for research practice in psychology on a continuum of paradigm integration and to specify associated criteria for judging intermethod coherence.

[...] The reader will find here a collection of papers that present, from different perspectives, an attempt to relate semiotics and cognitive science with linguistics, logic, and philosophy of biology. As a first broad account of those subjects, it does not specifi cally focus on or privilege any of the different approaches that have been proposed up to now, but instead gives the reader the opportunity to consider the various directions and topics of research that emerge from such relations.

[...]

It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by science. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that this worry stems not from an elusive feature of the mind, but from the special nature of the concepts used to describe conscious states. Marc Champagne draws on the neglected branch of philosophy of signs or semiotics to develop a new take on this strategy. 

The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound.

Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward.

Semiotics (sometimes spelled “semeiotic”) is the name first given by John Locke, and later reprised by Charles S. Peirce, for the “doctrine of signs,” or the study of how some things can stand for other things to still other things. This deliberate inquiry can be contrasted with “folk semiotic” accounts, which assume that there is some intrinsic feature about, say, the human voice or a painted board that makes them capable of signifying. Such a naive assumption does not withstand serious scrutiny. From a philosophical standpoint, what makes something a sign is an involvement in a specific sort of triadic relation. This relation is found in human/nonhuman and deliberate/nondeliberate signs alike. Semiosis, the action of signs, is what permits communication, but it is wider than communication. For example, if while in an adjacent room I smell that the turkey in the oven is ready, my pet dog can smell it too, and the turkey is not trying to “tell” us anything. But if the cook in the kitchen tells me it is ready, I receive that message, while my dog hears the sounds but is none the wiser (in contemporary semiotic parlance, my dog and I couple our Umwelten via indices, but the symbols at hand generate interpretants only in my anthroposemiosis). In spite of the fact that it has a long and distinguished history (especially during the medieval period), general inquiry into signs became an organized research program only in the mid-20th century. Today, in addition to philosophers, semiotics attracts a wide range of scholars, such as ethologists, cognitive scientists, linguists, art historians, logicians, media theorists, literary critics, computer programmers, biologists, sociologists, and so on. From a methodological standpoint, then, parochialism is not an option. The scholarly literature can nevertheless be fruitfully divided into theoretical and applied strands. Not surprisingly, most philosophers drawn to semiotic questions work in the former strand. Semiotics is not to be confused with “semiology,” a (now largely defunct) project that originated in the lectures of the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and which was active in the 1960s, mainly in France. Semiotics, by contrast, is a vibrant tradition that continues to flourish worldwide. Although some persist in employing the term “semiotics” when discussing narrow studies that focus exclusively on cultural codes, such terminological misuse masks the fact that a study of signs is broader than a study of language. A sustained philosophy of signs, then, promises (as Locke initially surmised) to yield truly novel insights.

Simandan D (2005) "Pragmatic Scepticism and the Possibilities of Knowledge" Timisoara, Editura Universitatii de Vest/West University Press, 256 pp.

This book distiled my own way of understanding the relation between epistemology, ontology, and politics, and the best name I found for labelling that way is pragmatic scepticism. Throughout the book, I stay away from the temptation to give a dictionary-like definition of this philosophy. I do not even like to think of it as a philosophy. Instead, I see pragmatic scepticism as a way of being and as a way of relating. A way of being human, i.e. enmeshed in language and limited by our senses; and a way of relating, i.e. crafted by the happy and sad encounters with theories, things, and lifeís happenings. The book is structured in three parts, which together give a sense of the potentials of pragmatic scepticism: as a way of thinking about the world, as a way of approaching theoretical dilemmas, as a way of mapping one's inner contradictions. The first part of the book introduces pragmatic scepticism in relation to the general questions underwriting the philosophy of knowledge and the study of science. The second part is more specific in that it deploys the pragmatic sceptical attitude to the central metatheoretical questions of the discipline of geography. The last part of the book groups under the heading "philosophies of struggle" two more applied essays on the political economy and the political epistemology of conflicts over knowledge in the globalised landscape of higher education in general and geography in particular.

Voraussetzung, Welt und Wissenschaft __________________________________________________________________________________________ ii Voraussetzung, Welt und Wissenschaft __________________________________________________________________________________________ v Voraussetzung, Welt und Wissenschaft __________________________________________________________________________________________ vi Ich bin auf dem Boden meiner Überzeugungen angelangt. Und von dieser Grundmauer könnte man beinahe sagen, sie werde vom ganzen Haus getragen. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Über Gewißheit Voraussetzung, Welt und Wissenschaft __________________________________________________________________________________________ vii 1. Vorwort Einsamkeit und Philosophie vertragen sind nicht. Jeder philosophische Gedanke ist Teil eines Netzes -eines historischen, eines kulturellen, eines argumentativen und eines sozialen Netzes. Ich möchte das Vorwort dieser Arbeit nutzen, um über das letzte dieser vier Netze

Here is a brief insight into Ezekiel's use of figurative language showing his usage in the Hebrew scriptures, and how that usage illuminates some of the motifs of end-time used by Jesus and John in the New Testament. Eg. Lion, Wolf, Nation spoken of as a single (corporate) entity, Covenant land as a woman, as a tree, as a vine, as raised above the clouds, face-to-face as judgment, day of the Lord as judgment, lightning as war, clouds as judgment, lions and wolves as princes and false prophets, earth as a country, covenanted city as an ornamented woman, Jerusalem, a harlot, as Samaria and Sodom.

Edgar Allan Poe’s standing as a literary figure, who drew on (and sometimes dabbled in) the scientific debates of his time, makes him an intriguing character for any exploration of the historical interrelationship between science, literature and philosophy. His sprawling ‘prose-poem’ Eureka (1848), in particular, has sometimes been scrutinized for anticipations of later scientific developments. By contrast, the present paper argues that it should be understood as a contribution to the raging debates about scientific methodology at the time. This methodological interest, which is echoed in Poe’s ‘tales of ratiocination’, gives rise to a proposed new mode of—broadly abductive—inference, which Poe attributes to the hybrid figure of the ‘poet-mathematician’. Without creative imagination and intuition, Science would necessarily remain incomplete, evenby its own standards. This concern with imaginative (abductive) inference ties in nicely with his coherentism, which grants pride of place to the twin virtues of Simplicity and Consistency, which must constrain imagination lest it degenerate into mere fancy.

Edgar Allan Poe’s standing as a literary figure, who drew on (and sometimes dabbled in) the scientific debates of his time, makes him an intriguing character for any exploration of the historical interrelationship between science, literature and philosophy. His sprawling ‘prose-poem’ Eureka (1848), in particular, has sometimes been scrutinized for anticipations of later scientific developments. By contrast, the present paper argues that it should be understood as a contribution to the raging debates about scientific methodology at the time. This methodological interest, which is echoed in Poe’s ‘tales of ratiocination’, gives rise to a proposed new mode of—broadly abductive—inference, which Poe attributes to the hybrid figure of the ‘poet-mathematician’. Without creative imagination and intuition, Science would necessarily remain incomplete, evenby its own standards. This concern with imaginative (abductive) inference ties in nicely with his coherentism, which grants pride of place to the twin virtues of Simplicity and Consistency, which must constrain imagination lest it degenerate into mere fancy.

The quest to provide a fundamental understanding and explanation of reality is an ambitious one. Perhaps it is too ambitious. The possible restrictions for such an enterprise to be successful must be inquired in order to determine the issue. Section 1 explores one’s understanding in reaching (scientific) conclusions: to what extent does a successful account testify to understanding? Section 2 focuses on the other side of such an account: does it provide an explanation in a more fundamental sense than pointing out causes of phenomena, or is it restricted to such a task? A critical stance vis-à-vis the (scientific) enterprise of unearthing reality’s structure remains necessary in order not to confuse a consistent and productive theory with one that demonstrates an understanding and explanation in the sense of this article.

An account of the concept of scientism and its relation with the concept of scientific imperialism, via a critical notice of two recent books: Maarten Boudry and Massimo Pigliucci (eds.), Science Unlimited? The Challenge of Scientism (University of Chicago Press, 2017) and Uskali Mäki, Adrian Walsh and Manuela Fernández Pinto (eds.), Scientific Imperialism: Exploring the Boundaries of Interdisciplinarity (Routledge, 2018).

Article online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09672559.2019.1565316

This article is a summary of a book which I have published as an Amazon Kindle book.  As a retired professor of anthropology who has a strong interest in the philosophy of science, I am now pursuing a life-long interest in physics.  However, in reading Modern Physics, I have become more and more critical of the approach it uses, and I believe that the methodology used is unscientific and tends toward metaphysics and mysticism.  Hence the book is about epistemology (how we know what we know), primarily focusing on language and logic as ways of knowing. 

Some physicists have admitted that the physics enterprise is now more mysticism than science.  Among these notable physicists are Fritjof Capra and David Bohm who essentially said that modern physics is more similar to Eastern mysticism than Western Science.  As an anthropologist who has studied linguistics, I am conscious of the way language is used in science.  Two of the terms that are often confused in physics are space and time.  Although space and time are metaphysical concepts, they are treated as physical entities since Einstein’s relativity came to dominate physics thinking.  Conceiving of these metaphysical entities as physical has led to the vain search for particles of space (space-atons, if you will) and time (perhaps time-atons) as physicists try to quantize space and time as they have quantized matter and energy. 
Consider this confusion regarding the concept of space.  Michelson-Morley found no evidence for ether filling space, in Special Relativity, Einstein said that space is vacuum (nothingness), in General Relativity, Einstein said that space is something material that is subject to be warped by mass thus causing planets to revolve around a star, in quantum physics, space is said to be nothing and something (a quantum foam of particles is constantly being born out of the vacuum).  It is apparent that physicists have relied far too much on mathematics and paid much too little attention to the accuracy and consistency of language.  It is the thesis of this book that the mathematics of a theory can be no better than the verbal logic upon which these mathematics rest.

The book also examines the evidence that supports relativity and quantum mechanics.  It was found that the evidence offered as conclusive support for relativity (Haefele-Keating airliner experiment and GPS synchronization) is not nearly as airtight as physicists make it out to be.  It is also found that there is contradictory evidence offered for the various interpretations of quantum theory.  For example, how does the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics explain the certainty regarding the high level of accuracy of Cesium clocks which depend on quantum emissions?

Some physicists I have read are beginning to question the accuracy of the premises upon which Modern Physics rests.  Perhaps, it requires an outside perspective to see through the thought molds and group think of insiders more completely. Hopefully, this book provides some insight on the fallacies of physics based in language from an outsider not socialized in the halls of academic physics.

If you have any interest in reading my book in its entirety, you may download it from Amazon.com for a free 30-day trial.

Douglas Reinhardt,
Ph.D. anthropology UNC-Chapel Hill, Chief Interest:  Philosophy of Science
Retired Professor of Anthropology

Simandan D (2005) "New Ways in Geography" Timisoara, Editura Universitatii de Vest/ West University Press, 230 pp.

The first part of the volume - "Old Ways" - addresses the question whether geography as we know it is worth keeping. The first chapter argues that traditional scientific disciplines are not as bad as we sometimes like to think they are. This argument is then deployed in the second chapter to investigate whether geography specifically is worth keeping. The chapter concludes that even if we admit a Cinderella status for geography among the disciplines, this aspect brings some secondary benefits out of which a rejuvenated geography can emerge. The second part of the book – "New Ways" – discusses some lines of flight towards this rejuvenated geography. Given the editorial constraints, I selected three possible new ways on which I have started to work lately. Thus, chapter three explores the stakes of an engagement between geography and metaphysics in the analytic tradition, chapter four makes some suggestions about how to understand the relativity of norms in geographical practice, and chapter five brings together two case studies that help explain why we need to pay sustained attention to the vicious logic of epistemic neglect.

The common way of putting a hypothesis H to an empirical test is by drawing empirical predictions E from H and observing whether E is true. If it is indeed true, H is said to be inductively confirmed by the evidence. So presumably H is a conclusion of a strong inductive argument involving E. However, the argument we use for the above confirmation is, 1. If H then E; 2. E; 3. Therefore, H. But this does not have the form of an inductively strong argument (in fact, it is the fallacy of affirming the consequent). I propose a solution, by showing that within the context of scientific inquiry, this argument can be shown to be indeed an enumerative induction.

This thesis examines the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of the concept of natural
selection which is pervasively invoked in biology and other ‘evolutionary’ domains. Although
what constitutes the process of natural selection appears to be very intuitive (natural selection
results from entities exhibiting differences in fitness in a population), this conceals a number of
theoretical ambiguities and difficulties. Some of these have been pointed out numerous times;
others  have  hardly  been  noticed.  One  aim  of  this  work  is  to  unpack  these  difficulties  and
ambiguities;  another  is  to  provide  new  solutions  and  clarifications  to  them  using  a  range  of
philosophical and conceptual tools. The result is a concept of natural selection stripped down
from its biological specificities.
I start by revisiting the entangled debates over whether natural selection is a cause of evolutionary
change as opposed to a mere statistical effect of other causes, at what level this putative cause
operates  and  whether  it  can  be  distinguished  from  drift.  Borrowing  tools  from  the  causal
modelling literature, I argue that natural selection is best conceived as a causal process resulting
from individual level differences in a population. I then move to the question of whether the
process of natural selection requires perfect transmission of types. I show that this question is
ambiguous  and  can  find  different  answers.  From  there,  I  distinguish  the  process  of  natural
selection from some of its possible products, namely, evolution by natural selection and complex
adaptation.  I  argue  that  reproduction  and  inheritance  are  conceptually  distinct  from  natural
selection,  and  using  individual-based  models,  I  demonstrate  that  they  can  be  conceived  as
evolutionary products of it. This ultimately leads me to generalise the concepts of heritability and
fitness used in the formal equations of evolutionary change. Finally, I argue that concepts of
fitness and natural selection crucially depend on the grains of description at and temporal scales
over which evolutionary explanations are given. These considerations reveal that the metaphysical
status of the process of natural selection is problematic and why neglecting them can lead to
flawed arguments in the levels of selection debate.

Historians occasionally use timelines, but many seem to regard such signs merely as ways of visually summarizing results that are presumably better expressed in prose. Challenging this language-centered view, I suggest that timelines might assist the generation of novel historical insights. To show this, I begin by looking at studies confirming the cognitive benefits of diagrams like timelines. I then try to survey the remarkable diversity of timelines by analyzing actual examples. Finally, having conveyed this (mostly untapped) potential, I argue that neglecting timelines might mean neglecting significant aspects of reality that are revealed only by those signs. My overall message is that, once we accept that relations are as important for the mind as what they relate, we have to pay closer attention to any semiotic device that enables or facilitates the discernment of new relations.

This paper explores the relation between scientific knowledge and common sense intuitions as a complement to Hoyningen-Huene's account of systematicity. On one hand, Hoyningen-Huene embraces continuity between these in his characterization of scientific knowledge as an extension of everyday knowledge, distinguished by an increase in systematicity. On the other, he argues that scientific knowledge often comes to deviate from common sense as science develops. Specifically, he argues that a departure from common sense is a price we may have to pay for increased systematicity. I argue that to clarify the relation between common sense and scientific reasoning, more attention to the cognitive aspects of learning and doing science is needed. As a step in this direction, I explore the potential for cross-fertilization between the discussions about conceptual change in science education and philosophy of science. Particularly, I examine debates on whether common sense intuitions facilitate or impede scientific reasoning. While contending that these debates can balance some of the assumptions made by Hoyningen-Huene, I suggest that a more contextualized version of systematicity theory could supplement cognitive analysis by clarifying important organizational aspects of science.

The bet between two elite intellectuals which is witnessed by more elite scientists (especially in physics) inspired the revisit of the aged topic of perpetual motion machines. The main substance in the bet, a sportive car the Blackbird, could run downwind at a sustainable faster-than-wind speed only on the wind energy induced by its own motion, which indicate the viability of the fourth kind of perpetual motion machines, a realistic one that would not need a constant energy supply from external sources while keep running without violating the thermodynamic laws. This paper elaborates the meaning, mechanism, and application potential of the fourth kind of perpetual motion machines, especially its weak type which could realistically run for a long time (years) without the need of the frequent replenishment of energy.

This paper argues that, in order to take place, space and scale more seriously in the study of our discipline, we have to complement the pervasive understanding of geography as a tradition of thought or an extended conversation with an understanding of our discipline as a tradition of practice, in which the main focus is on the becoming of geographers. It is argued that the theme of 'what it takes to be a good geographer' is a fertile way to study this process of becoming. The four main advantages of this approach are illustrated empirically in the body of the argument by the author's reflections on his socializing within two very different geographical traditions.

Representationalism—the view that scientific modeling is best understood in representational terms—is the received view in contemporary philosophy of science. Contributions to this literature have focused on a number of puzzles concerning the nature of representation and the epistemic role of misrepresentation, without considering whether these puzzles are the product of an inadequate analytical framework. The goal of this paper is to suggest that this possibility should be taken seriously. The argument has two parts, employing the “can’t have” and “don’t need” tactics drawn from philosophy of mind. On the one hand, I propose that representationalism doesn’t work: different ways to flesh out representationalism create a tension between its ontological and epistemological components and thereby undermine the view. On the other hand, I propose that representationalism is not needed in the first place—a position I articulate based on a pragmatic stance on the success of scientific research and on the feasibility of alternative philosophical frameworks. I conclude that representationalism is untenable and unnecessary, a philosophical dead end. A new way of thinking is called for if we are to make progress in our understanding of scientific modeling.

It is often contended that the special sciences, and even fundamental physics, make use of ceteris-paribus law-statements. Yet there are general concerns that such law-statements are vacuous or untestable or unscientific. I consider two main kinds of ceteris-paribus law-statement. I argue that neither kind is vacuous, that one of the kinds is untestable, that both kinds may count as scientific to the extent that they form parts of conjunctions that imply novel falsifiable statements which survive testing, but that one kind has an affinity with ad hoc manoeuvres that are unsatisfactory from a scientific point of view. I show that the contemporary debate about ceteris-paribus law-statements is afflicted with error and confusion because of a general failure to disentangle the notions: non-vacuous, testable, scientific, verifiable, falsifiable, and ad hoc.

In this article, I outline a logic of design of a system as a specific kind of conceptual logic of the design of the model of a system, that is, the blueprint that provides information about the system to be created. In section two, I introduce the method of levels of abstraction as a modelling tool borrowed from computer science. In section three, I use this method to clarify two main conceptual logics of information (i.e., modelling systems) inherited from modernity: Kant's transcen-dental logic of conditions of possibility of a system, and Hegel's dialectical logic of conditions of in/stability of a system. Both conceptual logics of information analyse structural properties of given systems. Strictly speaking, neither is a conceptual logic of information about (or modelling) the conditions of feasibility of a system, that is, neither is a logic of information as a logic of design. So, in section four, I outline this third conceptual logic of information and then interpret the conceptual logic of design as a logic of requirements, by introducing the relation of " suffici-entisation ". In the conclusion, I argue that the logic of requirements is exactly what we need in order to make sense of, and buttress, a constructionist (poietic) approach to knowledge.

The aim of this study is to be able to discover methodological similarities between the emergence of new tactics in the context of tactical changes in football history and the theory of paradigm shifts related to scientific revolutions in the philosophy of science. In this context, it has been argued that whether the changes in football tactics can be regarded as paradigmatic changes or not, taking into consideration certain points, and the question of whether the changes in football tactics can be handled as paradigm shifts in the scientific framework, and it has been analysed whether changes in soccer tactics can be handled as paradigm shifts in the scientific framework. The work's philosophical framework is based on the views of Thomas Kuhn on the philosophy of science in his work titled "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". The paradigm shift in this context is explained in detail through the concepts such as the anomalies in the paradigm, the period of scient...

A scientific theory must be falsifiable, and scientific knowledge is always tentative, or conjectural. These are the main ideas of Popper’s Logic of Scientific Discovery. Since 1960 his writings contain some essential developments of these views and make some steps towards epistemological optimism. Although we cannot justify any claim that a scientific theory is true, the aim of science is the search of truth and we have no reason to be sceptical about the notion of getting nearer to the truth. Our knowledge can grow, and science can progress. Nevertheless, Popper’s theory of approximation to the truth is problematic and is still the subject of studies and discussions.

In this article, I explore the value of philosophy of science for history of science. I start by introducing a distinction between two ways of integrating history and philosophy of science: historical philosophy of science (HPS) and philosophical history of science (PHS). I then offer a critical discussion of Imre Lakatos’s project to bring philosophy of science to bear on historical interpretation. I point out certain flaws in Lakatos’s project, which I consider indicative of what went wrong with PHS in the past. Finally, I put forward my own attempt to bring out the historiographical potential of philosophy of science. Starting from Norwood Russell Hanson’s insight that historical studies of science involve metascientific concepts, I argue that philosophical reflection on those concepts can be (and, indeed, has been) historiographically fruitful. I focus on four issues (epistemic values, experimentation, scientific discovery and conceptual change) and discuss their significance and utility for historiographical practice.

This monograph looks at causal nets from a philosophical point of view. The author shows that one can build a general philosophical theory of causation on the basis of the causal nets framework that can be fruitfully used to shed new light on philosophical issues. Coverage includes both a theoretical as well as application-oriented approach to the subject.

The author first counters David Hume’s challenge about whether causation is something ontologically real. The idea behind this is that good metaphysical concepts should behave analogously to good theoretical concepts in scientific theories. In the process, the author offers support for the theory of causal nets as indeed being a correct theory of causation.

Next, the book offers an application-oriented approach to the subject. The author shows that causal nets can investigate philosophical issues related to causation. He does this by means of two exemplary applications. The first consists of an evaluation of Jim Woodward’s interventionist theory of causation. The second offers a contribution to the new mechanist debate.

Introductory chapters outline all the formal basics required. This helps make the book useful for those who are not familiar with causal nets, but interested in causation or in tools for the investigation of philosophical issues related to causation.

Citation information: Gebharter, A. (2017). Causal nets, interventionism, and mechanisms: Philosophical foundations and applications. Synthese Library 381. Cham: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-49908-6

ABSTRACT: Wesley Salmon’s version of the ontic conception of explanation is a main historical root of contemporary work on mechanistic explanation. This paper examines and critiques the philosophical merits of Salmon’s version, and argues that his conception’s most fundamental construct is either fundamentally obscure, or else reduces to a non-ontic conception of explanation. Either way, the ontic conception is a misconception.

I examine the current state of the debate on the metaphysics of science (MS for short). In 1, I identify some of the main questions belonging to the MS, looking into the relationship between science and metaphysics. In 2, I expound the rise of the old wave in the MS, which endorses the belief that metaphysics is a guide to, or a heuristic for, science and outlines the stronger idea that metaphysics makes science possible. In 3, I examine the maximalist MS. This is a contemporary revival of the old wave, reformulating the claim that metaphysics makes science possible. In 4, I look into the new wave in the MS, which argues that science is a guide to metaphysics and, more radically, that metaphysics is to be motivated by, and restricted to, science. In 5, I briefly introduce my own minimalist MS, which contends that science sets the epistemic, methodological and ontological criteria which should work as desiderata of the MS. I close this chapter in 6 with some concluding remarks.