Metaphysics Of Science Research Articles

The species category as a scientific kind

Marc Ereshefsky’s project of eliminative pluralism holds that, as there is no unifying feature among all species concepts, we ought to doubt the existence of the species category. Here, I argue that one promising strategy for saving the species category is to reframe it as a natural kind after the practice turn. I suggest situating the species category within a recent account of natural kinds proposed by Marc Ereshefsky and Thomas Reydon called “scientific kinds”. Scientific kinds highlight ontological boundaries. More importantly, they recognize boundaries drawn from the lab and the field, not only from the armchair. The point of this exercise is to situate the species category within an account of natural kinds that is sensitive to scientific practice. In order to argue for a realist interpretation of the species category, and not merely a pragmatic one, I rely on an approach to scientific metaphysics from Ken Waters that shifts the attention from “theory focused” to “practice-centered” analysis.

The “Incongruous Move”: From Actuality to Possibility of Metaphysics in Kant

This paper illustrates how Kant’s demand for “systematicity” couches his metaphysics necessarily in a scientific idea of metaphysics. Though Kant’s take on metaphysics is induced by an urge for systematizing metaphysics along the contours of the “scientific” paradigm, this quest for systematization is, at the same time, meant as a scathing attack on, what Kant calls, “dogmatic” metaphysics. It is as an antidote to such “dogmatic” metaphysics that Kant articulates his transcendental metaphysics primarily as a “critical” and “scientific” enterprise. In this background, this paper takes a closer look at the methodological moves that are involved in making his case, in order to track the steps involved in the body of argument that constitute Kant’s critical metaphysics. The focus of the paper is to delineate the contingent and necessary methodological moves that come to define Kant’s championing for scientific metaphysics. Consequently, the paper will seek to illuminate the “incongruous” ground upon which Kant’s idea of “critical” metaphysics itself stands with respect to the distinction he makes between the actuality and the possibility of metaphysics.

The Philosophical and Scientific Metaphysics of David Bohm.

Although David Bohm’s interpretation of quantum mechanics is sometimes thought to be a kind of regression towards classical thinking, it is in fact an extremely radical metaphysics of nature. The view goes far beyond the familiar but perennially peculiar non-locality and entanglement of quantum systems. In this paper, a philosophical exploration, I examine three core features of Bohm’s metaphysical views, which have been both supported by features of quantum mechanics and integrated into a comprehensive system. These are the holistic nature of the world, the role of a unique kind of information as the ontological basis of the world, and the integration of mentality into this basis as an essential and irreducible aspect of it.

Introduction: new trends in the metaphysics of science

Introduction: new trends in the metaphysics of science

Typological thinking: Then and now.

A popular narrative about the history of modern biology has it that Ernst Mayr introduced the distinction between “typological thinking” and “population thinking” to mark a contrast between a metaphysically problematic and a promising foundation for (evolutionary) biology, respectively. This narrative sometimes continues with the observation that, since the late‐20th century, typological concepts have been making a comeback in biology, primarily in the context of evolutionary developmental biology. It is hard to square this narrative with the historical and philosophical literature on the typology/population distinction from the last decade or so. The conclusion that emerges from this literature is that the very distinction between typological thinking and population thinking is a piece of mere rhetoric that was concocted and rehearsed for purely strategic, programmatic reasons. If this is right, it becomes hard to make sense of recent criticisms (and sometimes: espousals) of the purportedly typological underpinnings of certain contemporary research programs. In this article, I offer a way out of this apparent conflict. I show that we can make historical and philosophical sense of the continued accusations of typological thinking by looking beyond Mayr, to his contemporary and colleague George Gaylord Simpson. I show that before Mayr discussed the typology/population distinction as an issue in scientific metaphysics, Simpson introduced it to mark several contrasts in methodology and scientific practice. I argue that Simpson's insightful discussion offers useful resources for classifying and assessing contemporary attributions of typological thinking.

Introduction for synthese special issue causation in the metaphysics of science: natural kinds

Introduction for synthese special issue causation in the metaphysics of science: natural kinds

Right out of the box: how to situate metaphysics of science in relation to other metaphysical approaches

Several advocates of the lively field of “metaphysics of science” have recently argued that a naturalistic metaphysics should be based solely on current science, and that it should replace more traditional, intuition-based, forms of metaphysics. The aim of the present paper is to assess that claim by examining the relations between metaphysics of science and general metaphysics. We show that the current metaphysical battlefield is richer and more complex than a simple dichotomy between “metaphysics of science” and “traditional metaphysics”, and that it should instead be understood as a three dimensional “box”, with one axis distinguishing “descriptive metaphysics” from “revisionary metaphysics”, a second axis distinguishing a priori from a posteriori metaphysics, and a third axis distinguishing “commonsense metaphysics”, “traditional metaphysics” and “metaphysics of science”. We use this three-dimensional figure to shed light on the project of current metaphysics of science, and to demonstrate that, in many instances, the target of that project is not defined with enough precision and clarity.

Philosophy and science in Adam Smith’s ‘History of Astronomy’

This article casts light on the intimate relationship between metaphysics and science in Adam Smith’s thought. Understanding this relationship can help in resolving an enduring dispute or misreading concerning the status and role of natural theology and the ‘invisible hand’ doctrine. In Smith’s scientific realism, ontological issues are necessary prerequisites for scientific inquiry, and metaphysical ideas thus play an organizing and regulatory role. Smith also recognized the importance of scientifically informed metaphysics in science’s historical development. In this sense, for Smith, the metaphysico-scientific link (i.e. metaphysically coherent conjecture), was a basic criterion of scientific validation by Inference to the Best Explanation. Furthermore, Smith’s comments implicitly suggest that in scientific progress there is a dialectic between metaphysics and science. These themes are illustrated primarily through his writings on the history of astronomy.

The First ‘Proclean’ Section (Chapter 20) of ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baġdādī’s Book on the Science of Metaphysics. Is the Pure Good of the Maḥḍ al-ḫayr Aristotle’s First Principle, Intellect in Actuality?

The first ‘Proclean’ section (Chapter 20) in ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baġdādī’s Kitāb fī ʿilm mā baʿd al-ṭabīʿa is titled Fī mā qāla l-ḥakīm fī kitāb īḍāḥ al-ḫayr. ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baġdādī presents his epitome of the Maḥḍ al-ḫayr. He reproduces all the propositions except numbers 4, 10, 18, and 20 in the same order. He adds Proclus’s proposition 54, On the difference between eternity and time (Mā bayn al-dahr wa-l-zamān), which is recalled twice, and passages from Metaphysics Lambda and the pseudo-Theology. Using a Farabian model, ʿAbd al-Laṭīf’s aim is to establish the identification between the First Cause, One and Pure Good, as presented in the Liber de causis, and the Aristotelian First Principle, Unmoved Mover and Intellect in actuality, described in his paraphrase of Metaphysics Lambda. Not surprisingly, however, ʿAbd al-Laṭīf is unable to reach this goal. Dissatisfied with the Avicennian summae, ʿAbd al-Laṭīf gathers in his Book on the Science of Metaphysics a syllabus of the ancient doctrines, the foundational sources of falsafa plus al-Fārābī. This syllabus inevitably reflects the antinomy of its sources concerning the nature of the First Principle, i.e. the antinomy of the two main doctrines at the origin of falsafa, the Plotinian One and the Aristotelian Intellect in actuality.

Kritika některých aspektů díla K. R. Poppera ve vztahu k demarkačnímu problému

V úvodní části zrekapitulujeme v hrubých obrysech Popperovu teorii demarkace v návaznosti na jeho další teze týkající se kritiky induktivních postupů, úlohy metafyziky ve vědě a falzifikaci. Dílo vídeňského filozofa vyvolalo značné množství reakcí, jejichž spektrum sahalo od dílčích modifikací Popperových myšlenek jeho žáky, přes návrhy nových teorií jím inspirovaných, až po zásadní kritiku. Hlavní směry této kritiky načrtneme (bez nároku na úplnost) v další části statě. Polemizujeme především s jednostranným odmítnutím indukce a pokoušíme se zde rehabilitovat některé induktivní postupy. Následně upozorníme na nedostatky Popperova pojetí falzifikace i na problémy použitelnosti jeho demarkačního kritéria na typických příkladech ze sféry metafyziky a "pseudovědy" (psychoanalýza, astrologie). Závěr věnujeme diskuzi o úloze indukce a dedukce ve vědě, posouzení užitečnosti Popperových teorií ve vztahu k současné vědě.

The Content of Science Debate in the Historiography of the Scientific Revolution

ABSTRACTThe issue of internalism and externalism in historiography of science was intensely debated two decades ago. The conclusions of such debate on the ‘context of science’ appear to be a reinstatement of the positivist view of the ‘content of science’ as comprising only ideas and concepts uninfluenced by extra-scientific factors. The description of the roles of politics, economy, and socio-cultural factors in science was limited only within the ‘context of science’. This article seeks to resituate the ‘content of science’ debate within the historical accounts of the Scientific Revolution to illustrate that their resort to historicism indicates that such content does not emerge from the void. It argues that, though some historicist accounts like Alexandre Koyré’s reinstate the positivist argument on the nature of the ‘content of science’, such historicist internalism greatly differs from positivist internalism, largely due to its acceptance of metaphysics in science. Therefore, as long as historicism is relied on to describe the content of science, a clear-cut distinction of the historicist internalism and externalism will be difficult to establish.

Neural networks, real patterns, and the mathematics of constrained optimization: an interview with Don Ross

DON ROSS (Winnipeg, 1962) is professor of economics at the University of Cape Town (South Africa) and is program director of methodology at the Center for Economic Analysis of Risk (CEAR) at the J. Mack Robinson School of Business at Georgia State University (USA). He is co-founder of the Research Unit in Behavioral Economics and Neuroeconomics (RUBEN) at the University of Cape Town. From 2012 to 2014 Ross was chair of the executive board of the International Network for Economic Method (INEM), and remains an active member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Economic Methodology, Biological Theory, and Bioeconomics. He holds a PhD in philosophy of science (1990) from the University of Western Ontario.The scope of Ross' work is staggering. His areas of specialization span economic methodology, game theory, experimental economics of risk and time preferences, addiction and impulsive consumption, the history of economics, and philosophy of science (from logical positivism to scientific metaphysics). Moreover, he has published, refereed, and organized symposia on topics as diverse as biological evolution, human language and signalling dynamics, artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial life modelling, connectionist theories of cognition, cognitive learning theory, analysis of econometric methods, political economy of international trade, African industry studies, and economic development (with emphasis on development in South Africa).Ross' published monographs include: Philosophy of economics (2014), Economic theory and cognitive science: microexplanation (2005), What people want: the concept of utility from Bentham to game theory (1999), and Metaphor, meaning and cognition (1993). His collaborations include Scientific metaphysics (2012, with James Ladyman and Harold Kincaid), Distributed cognition and the will (2007, with David Spurrett, Harold Kincaid, and G. Lynn Stevens), Handbook of the philosophy of economics (2009, with Harold Kincaid), Midbrain mutiny: the picoeconomics and neuroeconomics of disordered gambling (2008, with Carla Sharp, Rudy E. Vuchinich, and David Spurrett), Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized (2007, James Ladyman), and Dennett's philosophy: a comprehensive assessment (2000, with David Thompson and Andrew Brooks). To date, he has published upward of fifty scholarly articles, three dozen book chapters, and a score of reviews and review articles. He has also contributed over a hundred mass-market articles on trade and industrial policy in Africa.In this interview, professor Ross explores his intellectual roots and surveys his transition from cognitive scientist to economist. He discusses his involvement with Daniel Dennett, the virtues of economic optimization theory, and the merits (and demerits) of integrating economics with its neighbour disciplines.EJPE: The story of your academic training is very interesting: You started out as a philosopher interested in cognitive science-how did this segue into studying economics? Can you say a little bit about your background as a philosopher and your early interests in cognitive science?DON ROSS: It was a rapid trip across a wide intellectual landscape. I started offbeing interested in continental philosophy, specifically Merleau-Ponty's brand of phenomenology. Then I read Doug Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach (1980), in my final undergraduate year, and was entranced by the deep intellectual roots of the study of machine intelligence. My alma mater, Western Ontario, was strong in cognitive science-Zenon Pylyshyn was there at the time-and it was possible to specialize in cognitive science within the philosophy of science PhD programme. But it was 1986, and the 'new' connectionism was just being born. I was sure that bringing a more biological flavour into AI made sense, so wanted to study that. But the necessary formalism for neural network modelling is the mathematics of optimisation, not formal logic as with classical AI. …

Gundissalinus and the Application of al-Fārābī’s Metaphysical Programme. A Case of Philosophical Transfer

This study deals with Dominicus Gundissalinus’s discussion on metaphysics as philosophical discipline. Gundissalinus’s translation and re-elaboration of al-Fārābī’s Iḥṣā’ al-ʿulūm furnish him, in the De scientiis, a specific and detailed procedure for metaphysical analysis articulated in two different stages, an ascending and a descending one. This very same procedure is presented by Gundissalinus also in his De divisione philosophiae, where the increased number of sources –in particular, Avicenna– does not prevent Gundissalinus to quote the entire passage on the methods of metaphysical science from the Iḥṣā’ al-ʿulūm, with some slight changes in his Latin translation. The analytical procedure herein proposed becomes an effective ‘metaphysical programme’ with regards to Gundissalinus’s onto-cosmological writing, the De processione mundi. The comparative analysis of this treatise with the procedure received by al-Fārābī shows Gundissalinus’s effort to follow and apply this metaphysical programme to his own reflection, in a whole different context from al-Fārābī’s and presenting doctrines quite opposed to the theoretical ground on which al-Fārābī’s epistemology is based, like ibn Gabirol’s universal hylomorphism. Nevertheless, thanks to the application of the ‘metaphysical programme’, one can effectively claim that Gundissalinus’s metaphysics is, at least in the author’s intentions, a well-defined metaphysical system. In appendix to this article the three Latin versions of al-Fārābī’s discussion on metaphysics are reported, e.g., Gundissalinus’s quotations in De scientiis and De divisione philosophiae, and Gerard of Cremona’s translation in his De scientiis.

THE ROLE OF EDUCATION IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The article is devoted to the study of education as a factor and a mean of sustainable development of the modern society. The concept of sustainable development is segregated and viewed by many scientists from all over the world as perhaps the only real promising possibility of stable development of mankind in contemporary challenges and crises. The common feature of the approaches developed to understanding and putting into practice the concept of sustainable development is technotronic and operational orientation to the metaphysical science project, concluding that all the pressing global problems can be solved within the framework of technotronic-manipulative techniques in the field of economics, management, development of new technologies, including biological, et al. The crisis of education and changes in social and cultural life of a mankind are closely interconnected, they strengthen and stipulate each other. Here the leading role is played by the social and philosophical idea that the education system not only reflects the productive and social and political life of the society, but can be an important or even decisive factor of its change, its entering the path of sustainable development. Taking education as a factor in the adaptation of society to the sustainable development should be the main methodological principle of the reviving strategy globally. Global education is a special metasystem, where the aims of the world education policy for the solution of global problems are defined and implemented, where specific ties and relations between states and their educational systems aimed at all-round empowerment of the most effective forms of implementation of tasks of the future are operated.

The abundant world: Paul Feyerabend's metaphysics of science

The goal of this paper is to provide an interpretation of Feyerabend's metaphysics of science as found in late works like Conquest of Abundance and Tyranny of Science. Feyerabend's late metaphysics consists of an attempt to criticize and provide a systematic alternative to traditional scientific realism, a package of views he sometimes referred to as “scientific materialism.” Scientific materialism is objectionable not only on metaphysical grounds, nor because it provides a poor ground for understanding science, but because it implies problematic claims about the epistemic and cultural authority of science, claims incompatible with situating science properly in democratic societies. I show how Feyerabend's metaphysical view, which I call “the abundant world” or “abundant realism,” constitute a sophisticated and challenging form of ontological pluralism that makes interesting connections with contemporary philosophy of science and issues of the political and policy role of science in a democratic society.

The Complexity of Poincaré

Henri Poincare was certainly one of the greatest mathematicians of the previous century. The text under review is a three-part collection of papers. These papers clearly illustrate the breadth and depth of Poincare’s intellectual activities. The first section deals with Poincare’s philosophy of science, concentrating on his conventionalism. The second section looks at Poincare’s philosophy of mathematics, from both technical and historical perspectives. The final section delves into Poincare’s views on the foundations of physics, covering statistical mechanics, the role of metaphysics in science and Poincare’s epistemology of space. In the first paper of this collection, Laurent Rollet examines the early Poincare’s intellectual development. Although Rollet claims not to establish firm conclusions, his paper presents an early image of what seems to be the case of the mature Poincare: someone who is not seriously and professionally trained in philosophy, but a very philosophically minded soul nonetheless. It is most likely the case that Poincare’s lack of philosophical training combined with a deep interest in philosophy that leads to his philosophical musings being both frustrating and fascinating. Poincare is frustrating since he never clearly articulated his epistemological viewpoint, that is, his conventionalism, and so whether or not he embraced a unitary vision of conventions is not clear. Nonetheless, Poincare is fascinating since his writings reveal a real sense of openness in his work, and so the reader is provided with a glimpse of the creative depths in the mind of a practicing scientist. The problem of articulating Poincare’s conventionalism dominates the second and third papers, by Janet Folina and Maria de Paz, respectively. On the one hand, Folina reads Poincare as what I would call a liberal monist with regard to conventions. Poincare’s conventionalism—whether it concerns geometry or mechanics—is essentially one kind of conventionalism. The liberal aspect is

¿Qué entiende Feyerabend por Metafísica?

Feyerabend a lo largo de su obra varía y reforma el abordaje de la cuestión acerca de la relación entre ciencia y metafísica. Sus especialistas conocen con frecuencia cómo plantea dicha cuestión entre los 60 y finales de los 70, cuando está preocupado por resolver el problema de la inconmensurabilidad. Pero desconocen su posterior evolución. El objetivo de esta comunicación es presentar, a través de las confrontaciones que Feyerabend mantiene con sus interlocutores, las distintas connotaciones y roles que adquiere la metafísica respecto a la ciencia. Creemos que de este modo intentaremos hacer justicia a un pensador que no sido aún suficientemente comprendido y valorado.DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.15304/ag.34.1.1721

The Traditional Form of a Complete Science

The article treats as significant the formal coincidence between Kant’s presentation of the science of metaphysics in the “Architectonic of Pure Reason” chapter of the first Critique and Alexander Baumgarten’s presentation of the same in the Metaphysica. From his comments on Baumgarten in the metaphysics lectures, the article shows that for Kant metaphysics in its traditional form lacked completeness and systematic order. Kant fits completeness into his architectonic plan of a scientific metaphysics by Converting Baumgartian ontology into an “analytic of the understanding”; Kant achieves the systematicity by modeling a rational “idea of the form of the whole” after Baumgarten’s tree-like ordering of the special sciences of metaphysics. Thus, Kant realizes the completeness and systematicity in a theoretical presentation of the science of metaphysics that he finds lacking in Baumgarten precisely by borrowing from the latter his scheme for metaphysics.

It’s a process: Searching for meaning among the microbes

John Dupre has spent his career pushing against boundaries in biology and its philosophy. In the process of building a cottage industry out of disrupting what appeared to be fairly settled biological categories, Dupre managed to articulate an influential general metaphysics of science that was able to give us much of what we wanted from scientific realism while still remaining faithful to the heterodox duprevity of the ‘‘Disunity of Science’’ school. All the while, his work in these domains maintained a fruitful back and forth with the subject of human nature, where he continues to resist campaigns to homogenize Homo in a variety of disciplines. Processes of Life brings together a number of Dupre’s essays over the last decade that aim to further dupreve our thinking on matters that have traditionally dominated his scholarly agenda, this time with work on microbiology and process ontology leading the charge (for which he recently received a major grant from the European Research Council). As usual, Dupre’s work is a pleasure to read, and readers will surely appreciate the ease with which they can now access the pieces previously published as book chapters. But this particular collection of essays, I’m afraid, will not be successful in extending the reach of Dupre’s thought in the philosophy of biology. The most philosophically interesting discussions are not significant departures from the work for which he’s best known, and the most significant departures from the work for which he’s best known are not that philosophically

Scientific Metaphysics, by Don Ross, James Ladyman & Harold Kincaid (eds)

This volume of papers concerns the prospects of a scientific or, as Kincaid calls it in the introduction, naturalized metaphysics. The notion of a ‘scientific metaphysics’ has, of course, a convolu...