Synthese Special Issue Research Articles

Mathematical cognition and enculturation: introduction to the Synthese special issue

Mathematical cognition and enculturation: introduction to the Synthese special issue

Introduction to the special issue on form, structure and hylomorphism

We summarize in this introduction the contents of all the contributions included in Synthese special issue on form, structure and hylomorphism. Moreover, we provide an exhaustive bibliography of recent research on these topics.

Reflection on natural kinds. Introduction to the special issue on natural kinds: language, science, and metaphysics

This article is an introduction to the Synthese Special Issue, Natural Kinds: Language, Science, and Metaphysics. The issue includes new contributions to some of the main questions involved in the present philosophical debates on natural kinds and on natural kind terms. Those debates are relevant to philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and metaphysics. In philosophy of language it is highly debated what the meaning of natural kind terms is, how their reference is determined, as well as whether there are differences and similarities between the semantics of natural kind terms and that of other sorts of kind terms. In philosophy of science, natural kinds are relevant because they are the basis for scientific classifications and play an explanatory role in scientific theories; thus one aim of science is to discover natural kinds and theorize about them. Natural kinds are also relevant in metaphysics, where many questions involving natural kinds are debated and especially those concerning the sort of entities we refer to when using natural kind terms, i.e., the ontological status of natural kinds; in this regard there are different views, such as conventionalism, realism and essentialism. Another metaphysical question is what it is that characterizes the naturalness of kind divisions. The introduction sketches the antecedents of some of the present views on natural kinds and natural kind terms, and indicates some of the topics dealt with in the articles that make up the issue, which can be classified in the following groups: (1) the metaphysics and epistemology of natural kinds (2) the semantics of natural kind terms and other kind terms (3) questions on species and (4) other related issues on natural kinds. However, many of the articles cover more than just one of these topics.

Reflecting on what philosophy of epidemiology is and does, as the field comes into its own: Introduction to the Special Issue on Philosophy of Epidemiology

This article is an introduction to the Synthese Special Issue, Philosophy of Epidemiology. The overall goals of the issue are to revisit the state of philosophy of epidemiology and to provide a forum for new voices, approaches, and perspectives in the philosophy of epidemiology literature. The introduction begins by drawing on Geoffrey Rose’s work on how to conceptualize and design interventions for populations, rather than individuals. It then goes on to highlight some themes that emerged in the articles that make up the issue: (1) philosophy of epidemiology and epidemiological theory—what they are and what they ought to be, (2) pluralism in measurement and causal attribution, (3) epistemic and non-epistemic values in disputes epidemiological practices, (4) decentering philosophy of epidemiology’s Eurocentrism, (5) letting pragmatism guide uses of big data in epidemiology, and (6) revisiting the lessons of classic texts in epidemiological causal inference. The introduction concludes with comments on a philosophy of epidemiology debate we see on, regarding the politics of philosophy of epidemiology.

A taxonomy of types of epistemic dependence: introduction to the Synthese special issue on epistemic dependence

A taxonomy of types of epistemic dependence: introduction to the Synthese special issue on epistemic dependence

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

Introduction to the 2nd Synthese Special Issue: trends in philosophy of language and mind

Introduction to the 2nd Synthese Special Issue: trends in philosophy of language and mind

Clark Glymour’s responses to the contributions to the Synthese special issue “Causation, probability, and truth: the philosophy of Clark Glymour”

Clark Glymour’s responses to the contributions to the Synthese special issue “Causation, probability, and truth: the philosophy of Clark Glymour”

Synthese special issue introduction

Synthese special issue introduction

Foreword to the Synthese special issue on theories of information dynamics and interaction and their application to dialogue

Foreword to the Synthese special issue on theories of information dynamics and interaction and their application to dialogue

Erratum to: Synthese special issue: representing philosophy

Erratum to: Synthese special issue: representing philosophy

Synthese special issue: representing philosophy

Synthese special issue: representing philosophy

Introduction to the Synthese special issue on Hans Reichenbach, Istanbul, and Experience and Prediction

Fleeing from the Nazi rise to power in 1933, Hans Reichenbach resigned his post at the University of Berlin and accepted a five-year position at the University of Istanbul. It was there that he wrote his first book in English, Experience and Prediction, which the University of Chicago Press published in 1938. Reichenbach left Istanbul in 1938 to take up a position at University of California, Los Angeles, where he taught until his death in 1953. The papers collected in this Synthese special issue are the result of a conference that one of us (ES) casually suggested and the other (GI) organized, which took place at Bogazici University in Istanbul, in May 2008, to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the publication of Experience and Prediction. The lectures presented at that conference are all represented here, with the exception of Alan Richardson’s, and one of the paper included here, that of Frederick Eberhardt, was not presented at the conference. These papers are historical and philosophical in varying degrees. Some seek to situate Reichenbach in the political upheavals that drove him from Germany and the social transformations that led him to be welcomed to Turkey. Others connect Reichenbach’s work to the historical development of scientific philosophy, linking Reichenbach’s ideas to those of other scientists and philosophers who worked on induction, probability, and scientific realism. And still other essays are not historical in their fundamental orientation at all, in that they seek to draw from Reichenbach ideas that are of enduring importance in the attempt to solve philosophical problems in a scientific spirit.