bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Photon flux dependence on solute environment in water ices
Authors: McFall Alexander S. , Anastasio Cort
Published: January 2016

Environmental context
Anthropogenic pollutants deposited in and on snowpacks can undergo many sunlight-driven reactions. These processes have been studied, but typically without measuring the photon flux, the amount of light seen by the reactants, which is needed for comparing results across studies. This work investigates the effects of container albedo, solute location and mechanical ice crushing on the photon flux in laboratory ice samples to understand how these factors might affect photochemical rates.

Abstract
The photon flux directly affects the rates of both direct and indirect photodegradation reactions in water and ice. This flux might vary in the different solute reservoirs of water ice (e.g. between the bulk ice and air–ice interface), which might help explain reported differences in measured reaction rates. To address this possibility, here we use 2-nitrobenzaldehyde chemical actinometry to measure photon fluxes in ice samples prepared using different freezing techniques in order to put 2-nitrobenzaldehyde into different regions in the ice samples. Overall, the solute location has little effect on photon flux in water ice (purified frozen water) samples, with a maximum observed enhancement of 42±9% relative to aqueous values. However, the albedo (reflectivity) of the sample container strongly influences the photon flux in water and ice samples: for the same incident irradiance, 2-nitrobenzaldehyde loss is four times higher in a white beaker compared with in a dark-brown beaker. In addition, crushing an ice sample to a 2-mm grain size increases the photon flux in the resulting ice granules by 50% compared with in an intact ice disc (and by 80% compared with the corresponding solution). Although photon fluxes are similar in different solute reservoirs in and on ice, our results show that photon fluxes within a frozen (or aqueous) sample cannot be simply determined from incident fluxes, but instead need to be measured using the same sample geometry and container type.
Transcriptional profiles of supragranular-enriched genes associate with corticocortical network architecture in the human brain
Authors: Krienen Fenna M. , Yeo B. T. Thomas , Ge Tian , Buckner Randy L. , Sherwood Chet C.
Published: January 2016

Significance

The human cerebral cortex is patterned with distributed networks that connect disproportionately enlarged association zones across the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes. We asked herein whether the expansion of the cortical surface, with the concomitant emergence of long-range connectivity networks, might be accompanied by changes to the underlying molecular architecture. We focused on the supragranular layers of the cortex, where most corticocortical connections originate. Genes that are enriched in supragranular layers in the human cerebral cortex relative to mouse are expressed in a topography that reflects broad cortical classes (sensory/motor, paralimbic, associational) and their associated network properties. Molecular innovations of upper cortical layers may be an important component in the evolution of increased long-range corticocortical projections.
Cytokine Diedel and a viral homologue suppress the IMD pathway in
Drosophila
Authors: Lamiable Olivier , Kellenberger Christine , Kemp Cordula , Troxler Laurent , Pelte Nadège , Boutros Michael , Marques Joao Trindade , Daeffler Laurent , Hoffmann Jules A. , Roussel Alain , Imler Jean-Luc
Published: January 2016

Significance

We report the identification and characterization of a family of proteins encoded by insect DNA viruses and present in the venom of parasitic wasps. These molecules are homologous to the product of the uncharacterized
Drosophila
gene
diedel
(
die
). We show that Diedel is an immunomodulatory cytokine, which down-regulates the evolutionarily conserved immune deficiency (IMD) pathway of host defense in flies. The importance of this factor is highlighted by the fact that
die
mutant flies, which express high levels of IMD-regulated immunity genes, have reduced viability. Our work provides the first characterization of virokines in insects to our knowledge, and reveals that besides RNA interference and apoptosis, two well-characterized antiviral responses, insect viruses can also suppress a major signaling pathway of the innate immune response.
Reversal of morphine-induced cell-type–specific synaptic plasticity in the nucleus accumbens shell blocks reinstatement
Authors: Hearing Matthew C. , Jedynak Jakub , Ebner Stephanie R. , Ingebretson Anna , Asp Anders J. , Fischer Rachel A. , Schmidt Clare , Larson Erin B. , Thomas Mark John
Published: January 2016

Significance

The recent rise in opioid addiction has made development of new treatments a public health priority. The effort has been impeded by a distinct lack of understanding how opioid-induced alterations in synaptic transmission and cellular plasticity within reward brain regions, such as the nucleus accumbens (NAc), drive addiction behavior. We examined whether repeated morphine induces differential alterations in synaptic strength and transmission in subpopulations of NAc neurons, those expressing dopamine D1 or D2 receptors, that play opposing roles in addiction behavior. Morphine enhanced synaptic strength and transmission at D1 medium spiny neuron (MSN) synapses and reduced signaling in D2-MSN. Reversal of this plasticity with in vivo optogenetics or the antibiotic ceftriaxone disrupted the rewarding properties of morphine, providing a targetable molecular mechanism for future pharmacotherapies.
Novel cystine transporter in renal proximal tubule identified as a missing partner of cystinuria-related plasma membrane protein rBAT/SLC3A1
Authors: Nagamori Shushi , Wiriyasermkul Pattama , Guarch Meritxell Espino , Okuyama Hirohisa , Nakagomi Saya , Tadagaki Kenjiro , Nishinaka Yumiko , Bodoy Susanna , Takafuji Kazuaki , Okuda Suguru , Kurokawa Junko , Ohgaki Ryuichi , Nunes Virginia , Palacín Manuel , Kanai Yoshikatsu
Published: January 2016

Significance

Although molecular identification of transporters in mammals seems almost settled, some long-proposed transporters still remain to be revealed. The second cystine transporter in renal cystine reabsorption is one of such transporters. Its genetic defect has been proposed to be responsible for a type of cystinuria distinct from that caused by the mutations of the already known cystine transporter. In this study, we have found a membrane protein SLC7A13 as the second cystine transporter with proposed characteristics, and provided a possible clue to the genetics of previously unidentified cystinuria. Intricate functional coupling of SLC7A13 with the nearby glutamate transporter is also proposed. We have solved long-lasting problems in renal cystine transport physiology and paradoxes regarding the unmatched distribution of cystine transporter components.
History of Science and Its Rational Reconstructions
Authors: Lakatos Imre
Published: January 2016

“Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind”. Taking its cue from this paraphrase of Kant's famous dictum, this paper intends to explain how the historiography of science should learn from the philosophy of science and vice versa. It will be argued that (a) philosophy of science provides normative methodologies in terms of which the historian reconstructs ‘internal history’ and thereby provides a rational explanation of the growth of objective knowledge; (b) two competing methodologies can be evaluated with the help of (normatively interpreted) history; (c) any rational reconstruction of history needs to be supplemented by an empirical (socio-psychological) ‘external history’.

The vital demarcation between normative-internal and empirical-external is different for each methodology. Jointly, internal and external historiographical theories determine to a very large extent the choice of problems for the historian.
The Confirmation Machine
Authors: Erwin Edward
Published: January 2016

It is customary to draw a distinction between statements unconfirmable in practice and statements unconfirmable in principle. It may be impossible, for example, to confirm the statement “The star most distant from us in the universe has recently doubled in size,” but this impossibility is not of a logical kind. We could conceive of tests which would either confirm or disconfirm the statement, even if in fact we cannot carry them out. In contrast, the statement ‘Everything has recently doubled in size’ cannot be confirmed for logical reasons, or so some philosophers have claimed. If everything were to double in size, including the very measuring rods used to detect expansions, it would be logically impossible, so the argument runs, to either confirm or disconfirm the above statement.
New Dimensions of Confirmation Theory II: The Structure of Uncertainty
Authors: Rozeboom William W.
Published: January 2016

You are, I am sure, just as aware as I am that the operational nodes of a complex problem, the points at which it can be split open to yield nuggets of new insight or achieve lasting advances, often lie in tediously technical details perhaps incomprehensible to all but specialists in the matter and anyways totally lacking in the romance and easy excitement which attract the topic's dilettantes. I would like you to hold fast to this appreciation, for the concerns I shall raise here are technical indeed. They are, however,seminaltechnicalities which, as we seek to fathom them, should fundamentally reshape our comprehension of the logic of confirmation, causal connectedness, and the foundations of statistical inference. In brief, it will be seen that certain powerful everyday intuitions concerning which propositions are confirmationally irrelevant to which others are exceedingly difficult to justify.
Cost-Benefit versus Expected Utility Acceptance Rules
Authors: Michalos Alex C.
Published: January 2016

A rule for the acceptance of scientific hypotheses called ‘the principle of cost-benefit dominance’ is shown to be more effective and efficient than the well-known principle of the maximization of expected (epistemic) utility. Harvey's defense of his theory of the circulation of blood in animals is examined as a historical paradigm case of a successful defense of a scientific hypothesis and as an implicit application of the cost-benefit dominance rule advocated here. Finally, various concepts of ‘dominance’ are considered by means of which the effectiveness of our rule may be increased.
Ontological and Terminological Commitment and the Methodological Commensurability of Theories
Authors: Kleiner Scott A.
Published: January 2016

Scientific revolutions have been described as episodes in the history of science in which old empirical research activities, standards of achievement, problem fields and even ontologies have been exchanged for new (Kuhn, 1962; Feyerabend, 1962).

Also it has been claimed that rational canons for the evaluation of theories cannot reach across scientific revolutions. The revolutionary new theory can be defended only by rhetorical techniques, not by hypothetico-deductive or other inductive argumentation to or from empirically ascertained evidence. A revolutionary new theory achieves dominance over its predecessor only after the authority sustaining the latter theory is no longer effective. Thus, succeeding theories in scientific revolutions are held to be methodologically incommensurable. That is, logical argumentation cannot be used to assign differential values to succeeding theories.

A superficial examination of what it means for two theories to differ ontologically might lead to the conclusion that theories so differing are methodologically incommensurable.
Random Thoughts about Randomness
Authors: Good Irving John
Published: January 2016

In this paper I shall bring together some philosophical and logical ideas about randomness many of which have been said before in scattered places. For less philosophical aspects see, for example [27].

When philosophers define terms, they try to go beyond the dictionary, but the dictionary is a good place to start and one dictionary definition of ‘random’ is ‘having no pattern or regularity’. This definition could be analyzed in various contexts but, at least for the time being, I shall restrict my attention to sequences of letters or digits, generically called ‘digits’. These digits are supposed to belong to a generalized alphabet; perhaps a new word should be used, such as ‘alphagam’, but I shall use the word ‘alphabet’ in the generalized sense so as to avoid a neologism. For simplicity I shall assume that the alphabet is finite and consists of thetdigits 0, 1, 2,…,t— 1.
A Dilemma for the Traditional Interpretation of Quantum Mixtures
Authors: Cartwright Nancy
Published: January 2016

This paper argues that the ignorance interpretation of mixtures is physically unrealistic. The ignorance interpretation is the orthodox interpretation for mixtures, and should not be confused with the ignorance interpretation for superpositions, which has been largely abandoned. Mixtures, unlike superpositions, do not interfere. They are represented by mixed (or non-idempotent, i.e. W2 ≠ W) operators; superpositions, by pure (or idempotent) operators or by vectors. In the minimal interpretation both pure and mixed operators may be taken to describe collections. Any pure state, ψ, may be expressed as a sum of other pure states, ϕ 1, ϕ2, …, ϕn. Yet we cannot postulate that the members of the collection described by ψ are each in one of the pure states ϕ1, ϕ2, …, ϕn. This is because of the interference between the pure ϕ1, …, ϕn. On the other hand, if we have a mixture of ϕ1, …, ϕn, we can consistently postulate that the members of the collections are each in one of the pure states ϕ1, …, ϕn.
Rationality Between the Maximizers and the Satisficers
Authors: Michalos Alex C.
Published: January 2016

It is argued that by explicating rationality in terms of benefits balancing or outweighing costs instead of in terms of maximizing or satisficing something, a more adequate view of rationality is obtained.
Laws and Meaning Postulates in van Fraassen's View of Theories
Authors: Wessels Linda
Published: January 2016

In several recent papers ([7], [8]) Bas van Fraassen has suggested that the structure of a scientific theory might be more appropriately represented by his “semantic view of theories” than by the traditional “syntactic view.” Under the syntactic view, to characterize a theory one provides “a finite list of sentences given to count as axioms, plus a finite set of syntactic transformations, of an effective character, given to generate the set of all theorems from these axioms.” ([8], p. 305) The set of all such theorems is identified with the theory, and contains the set of all claims made by the theory about physical systems. Under the semantic approach, however, one “does not view a physical theory as… a kind of Principia Mathematica cum nonlogical postulates.” ([7], p. 337) Rather, “all the resources of mathematical English” are used to construct a theoretical framework, and “the theoretical reasoning of the physicist is viewed as ordinary mathematical reasoning concerning this framework.”
Observationality and the Comparability of Theories
Authors: Ostien Philip A.
Published: January 2016

Feyerabend and others have been defending for some time the thesis that even observation sentences depend for their meanings on the thegries in which they play a role. According to the most radical version of this thesis, if two theories contain incompatible theoretical statements, then even if the observation terms and sentences associated with the two theories are the same, these terms and sentencesmeansomething different, according as they are associated with one theory or the other. This claim has made it hard to see how, on this view, any two theories could be said to compete, or be incompatible, or be comparable on the basis of observation.

The whole dispute over this claim seems highly suspect to begin with. For look at the philosophical terms in which it is couched. On the one hand there is the notion of the “meaning” of a term or sentence, whose status as a useful tool of philosophical analysis has been in serious question for the past two or three decades.
The Relevance of Philosophy of Science for Science Education
Authors: Martin Michael
Published: January 2016

What relevance - if any - does philosophy of science have for science education? Unfortunately, this question has been largely unexplored. To be sure a great deal has been written on the philosophy of science; perhaps even more has been written in science education. However, surprisingly little has been written on the relation between the two areas. In this paper I will suggest some ways in which philosophy of science can have relevance for science education.

Before one considers how philosophy of science can have relevance to science education it is important to consider what is meant by ‘philosophy of science’. Some contemporary philosophers of science have distinguished two different approaches to philosophy of science: analytic and speculative. However in recent years a view of the philosophy of science has become popular that does not seem easily to fit into either the analytic or speculative categories.
How Do We Apply Science?
Authors: Cartwright Nancy Delaney
Published: January 2016

Until recently, philosophers have either denied that there is such a thing as philosophy of technology or have held it in contempt. A philosophy of technology would be as absurd as a philosophy of sport, they scoffed. Nowadays philosophers pay more attention to this crucial area We recognize that technology raises economic, moral, and social problems that demand philosophical attentioa But we still tend to overlook that applied science has conceptual problems – problems for the philosopher of science – independent of the moral, social, and aesthetic problems of technology. It is the need for philosophical study of these conceptual problems that I want to stress.

To make clear that these problems are scientific problems separate from the familiar problems of decision theory, costbenefit analysis, and social responsibility, I shall choose two examples at a fairly high level in the application of physics – one quantum, one classical.
The Influence of Knowledge on the Description of Facts
Authors: Shapere Dudley
Published: January 2016

Every inquiry, or at least every inquiry that aims at knowledge, has a subject-matter - that which the inquiry is about, which is the object or set of objects studied. Let us, for the sake of brevity, and without further analysis for the present, call the set of things studied in an investigation the domain of the inquiry, and the particular things that make up the domain the items of the domain. (These “items” might, in particular inquiries, be spoken of as “objects,” “processes,” “behavior,” “facts,” or in still other ways; but such ways of speaking involve problems which, being irrelevant to present purposes, I wish to avoid by speaking more generally of “items.” Sometimes it is convenient to speak of classes of items as themselves items which are objects of investigation.)
Rationality and Sociality
Authors: Schick Frederic
Published: January 2016

What this paper has to do with the theory of rational choice is not clear. Still, I won't apologize. The ideas here grow out of a study of some applications of rationalism. It seems to me that the rationalist model neglects a great deal. This is not a criticism. Every model abstracts from nature. But the aspects of choosing what this model ignores are often those we most need to note in order to explain behavior. And we need to bring them out for other purposes too. Hence this essay toward a fuller analysis.

First about rational choice theory itself. On the rationalist theory, every person pursues his interests, and, in particular, pursues them in a certain way. He considers the consequences of his options, and chooses that option whose consequences he prefers to the consequences of each of the others.
Induction and Causality in a Cellular Space
Authors: Uchii Soshichi
Published: January 2016

I have recently developed two kinds of model for inductive logic with causal modalities, the deterministic and the probabilistic. Roughly speaking, the first provides certain syntactic and semantic criteria for causal necessity, so that a causal or nomic universal can be deductively derived from a certain actual universal; whereas the second model allows only a probabilistic transition from actual universality to causal universality. These models are meant to provide, from a modal point of view, a formal explication of nomic universality both in its semantic and inductive aspects.

However, these models are too abstract if we want to treat adequately such problems as causality, the confirmability of causal laws, etc., in that they do not have a framework of space and time, which seems essential to our conception of causality.
Rational Conceptual Change
Authors: Harper William L.
Published: January 2016

One of the salient features of Carnap's systems of inductive logic is a conditionalization learning model, which also plays a fundamental role in the orthodox Bayesian account of rationality. This learning model does not allow for revision of previously accepted evidence. It is, therefore, not adequate to represent all rational learning by an agent who accepts corrigible propositions as evidence. Recently I used a generalization of the concept of conditional belief to extend the model so that rational revision of previously accepted evidence can be accommodated. My generalization of conditional belief carries with it a natural way of representing an agent's conceptual framework. In this paper I exploit this representation to produce learning models that can accommodate rational conceptual change.

The idea of conceptual change has received considerable attention in recent work of philosophers of science. The following quotation from Hilary Putnam is instructive.
John Stuart Mill, John Herschel, and the ‘Probability of Causes’
Authors: Strong John V.
Published: January 2016

Any discussion of probability theory in early nineteenth-century Britain requires a specially vigorous exercise of the historical imagination. A century of subsequent thought about the foundations of the subject has made both historians and philosophers of science only too aware of how elusive and polyvalent a term ‘probability’ is; indeed, since Carnap, it has scarcely been possible to use the word without a qualifying adjective or subscript. Before the nineteenth century, on the other hand, during the ‘emergence’ of formalized probabilistic thinking, writers from Pascal and Fermat onwards were keenly conscious that the concept they used was often ill-defined and equivocally employed.

There is a sensation, therefore, of sailing unexpectedly into a patch of flat calm when one turns to such early Victorian writers (I use the term in its common, extended sense to refer to the period from around 1830 till the middle of the century) as Lubbock, Drinkwater-Bethune, Galloway, and, above all, De Morgan.
The Only Real Probabilities in Quantum Mechanics
Authors: Cartwright Nancy
Published: January 2016

Position probabilities play a privileged role in the interpretation of quantum mechanics. The quantum wave function (usually designated “Ψ(r)’) cannot itself represent a physical quantity, because it is complex valued. Its square — |Ψ(r)|2 — however, is real; and it is |Ψ(r)|2 which is the fundamental interpreted quantity of the theory. Schrödinger, who originated wave mechanics, interpreted |Ψ(r)|2 as the density of a charged particle; but this suggestion was inadequate. A principal reason is that, for most physical systems, |Ψ(r)|2 spreads out in time, whereas particles themselves do not. Schrödinger's interpretation was replaced by Born who introduced probabilities into quantum mechanics. Born urged that |Ψ(r)|2 represents not the density of the system in space, but rather a probability density. This is almost universally how quantum mechanics is taught today: |Ψ(r)|2 gives the probability that a system in state Ψ(r) is located at r.
A Universal Axiomatization of Kinematical Theories
Authors: Giannoni Carlo
Published: January 2016

By a kinematical theory we mean a theory of space, time, and light signals as measured by rigid rods and clocks. In this paper we shall construct an axiomatization of possible kinematical theories which has two especially interesting properties: it is universal in the sense that it presents a threefold continuum of kinematical theories ranging from Special Relativity (STR) on one extreme to Classical Aether Theory on the other; and it is synchronization independent, that is, it does not assume any particular synchronization for clocks. Reichenbach's axiomatization has the threefold continuum implicitly in it, but he does not explicitly present it as a universal axiomatization and he does not give it a synchrony free formulation. On the other hand, the synchrony free axiomatization of STR by Winnie is not universal and it masks an important distinction within the light principle. However, both of these axiomatizations were central to developing the present axiomatization.
Rhetoric and Scientific Rationality
Authors: Finocchiaro Maurice A.
Published: January 2016

The problem of scientific rationality and Feyerabend's views on the subject need no special introduction in this context. What does need emphasis is the desirability of resisting the widespread tendency either to dismiss him as a Dadaist or to take his rhetoric seriously and despair about the rationality of science. Both tendencies betray a failure to appreciate his peculiar contributions, which are a (relatively) novel theory of rationality, and a (relatively) novel problem. The theory is that scientific rationality is essentially rhetorical, in the sense that scientific method ultimately reduces to a matter of techniques of persuasion (as distinct from, say, a matter of “method”); and the problem, which remains even for those who may reject the theory, is that of the role of rhetoric in science.

Since Feyerabend's latest book is full of the rhetoric of irrationalism, it is best to begin by purifying the air surrounding such rhetoric.
What Kind of Revolution Occurred in Geology?
Authors: Ruse Michael
Published: January 2016

The one thing upon which we can all agree is that just over ten years ago a major revolution occurred in the science of geology. Geologists switched from accepting a static earth-picture, to endorsing a vision of an earth with its surface constantly in motion. (Cox [4]; Hallam [12]; Marvin [28]; Wilson [56]). It is true that early in this century the German geologist Alfred Wegener argued that the continents as we today find them have “drifted” to their positions from other positions widely different. However, other than amongst a number of scientists drawn almost exclusively from the Southern Hemisphere, his ideas fell on deaf — or more precisely, contemptuous — ears. Then in the mid 1960’s, almost literally overnight, the geological community swung around and embraced the hypothesis of continental drift, or what we shall see is perhaps more accurately called “plate tectonics”.
The Logic of Mathematical Discovery Vs. the Logical Structure of Mathematics
Authors: Feferman Solomon
Published: January 2016

Mathematics offers us a puzzling contrast. On the one hand it is supposed to be the paradigm of certain and final knowledge: not fixed to be sure, but a steadily accumulating coherent body of truths obtained by successive deduction from the most evident truths. By the intricate combination and recombination of elementary steps one is led incontrovertibly from what is trivial and unremarkable to what can be non-trivial and surprising.

On the other hand, the actual development of mathematics reveals a history full of controversy, confusion and even error, marked by periodic reassessments and occasional upheavals. The mathematician at work relies on surprisingly vague intuitions and proceeds by fumbling fits and starts with all too frequent reversals. In this picture the actual historical and individual processes of mathematical discovery appear haphazard and illogical.

The first view is of course the currently conventional one which descends from the classic work of Euclid.
Conceptual Change in Mathematics and Science: Lakatos’ Stretching Refined
Authors: Fine Arthur
Published: January 2016

I once wrote to Imré Lakatos that if he had not already established himself as an accomplished philosopher and provocateur, he could have made a successful career as a Hollywood script writer. I had in mind, at that time, a beautifully written paper he had constructed by pasting together the cuttings from other papers. I had forgotten that his reputation as a dramatist was already established, with the production of his Proofs and Refutations [9]. For that work, it seems to me, is simply a play within a play. The main character, whose part is written in the footnotes, delivers a monologue which is a commentary on the drama, between teacher and students, that occupies center stage. This main character is not named in the play, so for ease of reference I shall call him “Imré”. What Imré points out is that the drama on center stage imitates life, in showing us the essential features of the methodology by virtue of which mathematical science grows.
On the Use of Likelihood as a Guide to Truth
Authors: Kimbrough Steven Orla
Published: January 2016

Much work in confirmation theory is directed towards finding or interpreting a function, c, taking on hypotheses and evidence as its arguments and returning a value by which the degree of support of the evidence for the hypothesis can be assessed. Confirmation functions are generally thought of as probability functions. That is, c(H,E) is thought to obey the axioms of probability theory, where H is an hypothesis and E the evidence being considered. A difficulty with this approach is that the various problems of induction, including Hume's and Goodman's, militate against construing any confirmation function as a probability function. To date, no satisfactory probability function has been found which addresses the general problem of ampliative inference and which is immune to the standard objections of the Humean or Goodmanian type.

These sorts of considerations suggest it would be promising to examine, as candidates for an acceptable confirmation function, functions which are not probability functions.
The Formal Structure of Genetics and the Reduction Problem
Authors: Lindenmayer A. , Simon N.
Published: January 2016

An often heard remark is that “discovery of the molecular basis of heredity means that all life processes are now or will shortly be explainable on a molecular basis.” This extreme view is defended with surprising vehemence by one faction of biologists. The opposing view, just as extremely expressed is that “no interesting biological phenomena have yet been explained by molecular mechanisms, not even genetic phenomena.” These two positions have been called the “reductionist” and “antireductionist” points of view. Since “reductionism” is given in the philosophy of science many different meanings, we choose the one which in our opinion could shed some light on the problems underlying this controversy. In our view all the emotion-laden epithets aside, “reductionism” has still primarily to do with “theory reduction” in the logical empiricist (or positivist) sense. Clearly this concept is inextricably tied up with that of “explanation”, and fundamentally it is explanations that this controversy is about.
Is Temporality Mind-Dependent?
Authors: Fitzgerald Paul
Published: January 2016

The question is oversimple. We are more likely to find the right set of answers if we focus sharply a distinction which is invariably blurred by those who discuss the issue, especially those who argue that “temporal becoming” is a mind-dependent feature of reality. We must distinguish the “indexicality theme” from the “elapsive theme”. Failure to do so has bred some confusion, I think.

A bit of background first. Those who discuss the mind-dependence of temporal becoming think of that issue as analogous to the traditional one about the mind-dependence of secondary qualities. Do colors, felt hotness, and salty taste exist in the mind-independent world? Or only within experience? “Roses are red, just like some of our after-images.” “No they aren't. Roses only have a property of selectively reflecting light in the 7200 Å region. That makes them look red to us. But they aren't really red.” “You're both wrong.
How to Do Philosophy of Economics
Authors: Hausman Daniel M.
Published: January 2016

Although philosophers of science have always been interested in the actual work of scientists, there has been a strong turn in the last generation away from prescribing how science ought ideally to proceed and toward studying more carefully how science has proceeded. In part this turn has been a reaction to previous work in philosophy of science, which to many seemed misguided and largely irrelevant to the sciences. In part this change reflects a general scepticism about the possibility of doing traditional foundationalist epistemology. Such scepticism is itself a reaction to the failure of the foundationalist program of the logical empiricists. The contemporary turn toward careful empirical study of the sciences constitutes a new program for the philosophy of science, which I shall call ‘empirical philosophy of science’ or ‘the empirical approach to the philosophy of science’.
What Was Born's Statistical Interpretation?
Authors: Wessels Linda
Published: January 2016

When Max Born introduced his statistical interpretation of wave mechanics in mid-1926, the reactions were mixed. His most recent collaborator, Pascual Jordan, was delighted; his former assistant, Werner Heisenberg, was horrified. The interpretation served as grist for Neils Bohr's philosophical mill. For Bohr's former collaborator, John Slater, it inspired a strange hybrid interpretation, a sort of statistical version of Schrödinger's electrodynamic model. What was the interpretation that engendered these varied reactions? Neither Born nor most of his contemporaries saw in it anything that even suggests the interpretation that we now associate with his name. Rather, it was another former assistant of Born's, Wolfgang Pauli, with eyes as sharp as his tongue, who saw in Born's work the idea that |Ψ(q)| represents the probability distribution for position.
An Information-Processing Theory of Mental Imagery: A Case Study in the New Mentalistic Psychology
Authors: Smith George E. , Kosslyn Stephen M.
Published: January 2016

Mental imagery has been on the defensive for the last fifty years. Philosophers have argued that talk of mental images invites systematic confusion, that such talk is at best metaphorical, and that it consequently creates only an unfortunate illusion of explanation when it is taken literally. Such a prioristic objections ought to carry less weight in the case of experimental studies of imagery since empirical findings are likely to supply nonmetaphorical content where it is needed. Nevertheless, the same sorts of criticism have been put forward against experimental efforts. Added to this is a suspicion that mental imagery is not compatible with a strictly computational account of mental processes and hence it is out of step with the most promising research occurring in cognitive psychology. So, even in the case of experimental studies, there is a presumptive burden of argument on those who take mental imagery seriously.
The Origin and Implications of Engineers' Obligations to the Public Welfare
Authors: Gravander Jerry W.
Published: January 2016

The “Code of Ethics” formulated by the Engineer's Council for Professional Development—and adopted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers— claims that “engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public in the performance of their professional duties… . [Moreover,] should the Engineers’ professional judgment be overruled under circumstances where the safety, health, and welfare of the public are endangered, the Engineers shall inform their clients or employers of the possible consequences and notify other proper authority of the situation, as may be appropriate.“ The other major engineering societies endorse “Codes of Ethics” with a similar provision.
Correlations and Physical Locality
Authors: Fine Arthur
Published: January 2016

Correlations between the behavior of pairs of particles are generated in the following experimental situation. An on-line source emits a stream of two-particle systems, where each system is in one and the same quantum state. After emission, the particles – call then (I) and (II) – move off in opposite directions. Each particle then encounters one of several possible barriers that either it passes or doesn't. A short distance behind each barrier is a detector set to register the presence of the particle, should it get that far. Finally, the detectors are connected by a timed relay and counter that registers a “coincidence count” should the two detectors fire within a set, brief time interval. When the experiment is run with various different barriers, detection rates accumulate for each barrier singly, and coincidence rates (the correlations) for the various pairs of barriers.
Causal Analysis of Hidden Variables
Authors: Suppes Patrick
Published: January 2016

My contribution to this symposium is focused on the retreat from strong conditions of causality that have been forced upon us by quantum mechanics. My intent is to describe in more or less successive stages the retreat from the paradise of deteministic causation. This retreat has taken place through a thicket of quantum-nechanical details. It is ny intention to describe the general principles involved but to refer to the literature for proofs and full technical elaboration, even of matters that are crucial to the conceptual development.

The history of the efforts to prove or disprove the possibility of hidden variables begins at least with von Neumann and includes important work by Kochen and Specker and others, but much of the recent analysis has centered around Bell's inequality and related results. In spite of its importance and significance I shall ignore this earlier history and begin with these recent discussions.
Scientific Realism and the Hierarchical Counterfactual Path from Data to Theory
Authors: Laymon Ronald
Published: January 2016

Philosophers tend to view the relationship between a particular scientific theory and its data as representable by means of a single logical structure. The relationship is not ordinarily viewed as requiring a hierarchy of structures of different logical type. Two recent and excellent books illustrate this tendency. Glymour in Theory and Evidence (1980) continues the positivist tradition of viewing theories as axiomatic systems which connect with their evidence by means of ordinary quantification and truth functional connectives. Theory testing can be understood in terms of the syntactic properties of a single logical system. In The Scientific Image (1980), van Fraassen adopts a version of what is sometimes called the “semantic view”: a theory is a set of models of some purely formal system. Evidence constitutes (if confirmatory) a sub-model imbedded in a model of the equivalence class that is the theory.
The Explanatory Import of Dispositions: A Defense of Scientific Realism
Authors: Ringen Jon D.
Published: January 2016

It is widely assumed that disposition predicates do not designate events, processes, or states of affairs which could be causal factors in the production of natural phenomena, yet the fact that an object has a given dispositional property is frequently taken to help explain the behavior exhibited by the object to which the disposition can be ascribed. Considerable philosophical effort has been devoted to the task of explaining how this could be so. The results run the gamut from Hume's (1739, p. 224) view that faculties and occult qualities have absolutely no explanatory import to Armstrong's (1968, p. 88) recent conclusion that dispositions are causes. Most proposals, however, lie between these extremes. Most contemporary philosophers take it for granted that disposition ascriptions have some explanatory import even though disposition predicates do not designate causes.
The Creation of Similarity: A Discussion of Metaphor in Light of Tversky's Theory of Similarity
Authors: Kittay Eva Feder
Published: January 2016

The cognitive interest in metaphor and simile derives from a conceptual detour: through these figures we regard one thing in terms of another, and in so doing our understanding of the first is modified in light of perspective gained by the second.

But why, in terms of cognitive gain, engage in such conceptual detours? That is, what motivates our use of metaphor and simile? The motivation of metaphor has often been thought to be the assertion of asimilarity amongst things generally not thought to be similar. However, as Max Black pointed out in criticizing the “comparison theory of metaphor”, metaphors are not simple comparisons of “objectively given” similarities, wherein to the question “is A like B in respect of P?” we might have a definite answer.
Probabilistic Explanations
Authors: Fetzer James H.
Published: January 2016

Hanna (l981) and Humphreys (1981) have offered criticisms which tend to undermine the plausibility of the single-case propensity account of probabilistic explanation advanced in Fetzer (1974) and (1981a). Hanna contends that, on single-case criteria, there typically are no unique single-case propensity values to assign to the occurrence of particular explanandum-events because the propensities for these outcomes to occur are continuously evolving over time (yielding “the temporal relativity of probabilistic explanations”), while Humphreys suggests that, whether or not unique single-case probability values happen to be available at all, they are nevertheless incidental and dispensable elements of otherwise potentially acceptable explanatory accounts. Indeed, Humphreys and Railton (1978) and (l981) appear to converge in common agreement on the inessential function of single-case probability assignments within the context of probabilistic explanations.
On the Present State of the Philosophy of Quantum Mathematics
Authors: Stein Howard
Published: January 2016

It was with some trepidation that I agreed to speak today, because of a strong doubt that I could say anything substantial not already to be found in the literature of the subject. I cannot say that this trepidation has been subsequently relieved: all I can claim to offer in this paper is a review of certain basic characteristics or themes in the quantum-mechanical situation (which by now should, I think, be thoroughly understood by everyone engaged with the matter), supplemented by some rather general reflections on our philosophical predicament. In aid of these more general reflections, I shall indulge a proclivity for calling on historical matters—some fairly recent, some older, some ancient—which I hope may serve to place current issues in a useful perspective; and I ask your forgiveness for allowing myself to quote certain previous, but hitherto unpublished, remarks of my own.
Paradigm Shifts, Scientific Revolutions, and the Unit of Scientific Change: Towards a Post-Kuhnian Theory of Types of Scientific Development
Authors: Tang Paul C. L.
Published: January 2016

One of the central problems of Kuhn's theory of scientific development is its reductionistic and local approach, i.e., its application of one basic pattern of scientific development—Kuhnian revolutions or K-revolutions—to only one area of science, the physical sciences. But the question arises as to why significant developmental episodes in the history of physics and chemistry only should be taken as paradigm cases, especially inasmuch as Kuhn himself claims to be describing and explaining the development of science generally. As Kuhn says, scientific revolutions “are at the heart of the most significant episodes of scientific development.“(Kuhn 1962, p. 140).

I shall take a somewhat radical position. First, I shall argue that the concepts of paradigm shift and scientific revolution are asymmetrical. That is, paradigm shifts represent a genus, and scientific revolutions are species within that genus; and whereas all K-revolutions are paradigm shifts, the converse does not hold.
Pragmatic Incommensurability
Authors: Collier John
Published: January 2016

Thomas Kuhn (1962) proposed that there are theories which are not only incompatible but also semantically incommensurable in order to explain historical evidence that scientists who hold consecutive theories often fail to come to terms with each other, being unable to resolve differences by appeal to evidence, authority or convention. Despite Kuhn's objections, this thesis has generally been interpreted by friends and foes alike so as to preclude direct rational communication across revolutionary divides in science. In this paper, I will sketch a weaker form of incommensurability which allows eventual comparison of incommensurable theories, but is consistent with Kuhn's model of science.

According to Kuhn, mature science normally operates within a disciplinary matrix which determines the nature of both scientific problems and their solutions. Such a matrix is composed of an articulated formalism, together with a set of standard problems called “exemplars”, and a set of preferred analogies for extending the exemplars to new applications.
What is Darwinism Today?
Authors: Mayr Erns
Published: January 2016

One of the dominant interests of the philosophers of science has always been the problem of theory construction. How is a new theory established? To what extent can a theory be changed? Do theories change gradually or are they replaced during revolutions?

Most of the theorizing on these questions has been done with theories of the physical sciences, but there are indications that, for several reasons, Darwin's theory of evolution does not fit in the traditional framework. For instance, the number of theories still competing with each other in the 80 year period from the Darwinian revolution (1859) to about 1940 is quite extraordinarily large, and it was not one of these competing theories that was ultimately victorious, but rather an eclectic theory in which the best components of several opposing theories were synthesized in the 1940s.
Objectivity, Rationality, and Scientific Change
Authors: Shapere Dudle
Published: January 2016

Many philosophers used to believe that the objectivity and rationality of science lay in its reliance on “brute facts”, on what was “given” in sense-experience without any interpretation (and therefore any presuppositions) whatever. For those philosophers, granted their sharp distinction between the pure given and what is built on or added thereto, a distinction between “objectivity” and “rationality” was comparatively easy to draw (though I know of no place where it was explicitly so drawn). For a person to be “objective” in a given inquiry would be for that person to base his inquiry (either his deductions or inductions from the given, or his justification of his theories, depending on the particular version of the view we are considering) solely on the unvarnished facts, the pure given. And for a proposition (conclusion, hypothesis) to be “objectively based” would be for it to be based solely on (deduced or induced solely from, justified in terms of) the pure, uninterpreted given.