bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Introspection, Observation, and Experiment: An Example Where Experiment Pays Off
Authors: Carden Guy , Dieterich Thomas G. 
Published: January 2016

How do we collect data to test theories about syntax and semantics? For most of us, the process is very simple: We have a hypothesis, we construct sample sentences to test it, introspect about their grammaticality or meaning, and move on to modify our hypothesis as necessary. It would be fair to say that the standard method of data collection in syntax and semantics is personal introspection. This personal introspection is not totally uncontrolled, of course: Doubtful cases are checked informally with friends or colleagues; and there is an implicit, check when the referees accept a paper or an audience listens without objecting. What we have, in effect, is the introspection of the professionals, the people who know what the issues are.This standard method has been enormously successful: Linguists have produced precise and interesting theories about syntax and semantics; and the bulk of the data on which these theories depend is undisputed and, we believe, undisputable.
Some Thoughts on Data and Theory in Linguistics
Authors: Grandy Richard E. 
Published: January 2016

Questions about the nature of the appropriate data for linguistics may seem a mundane matter, but they reflect deep issues about'the nature of language and of the science of linguistics, if science it be. Consequently the methodological modifications suggested by Carden and Dieterich (1981) and Zwicky (1981) could have ramifications far beyond a slight broadening of the range of data relevant to syntactic theory. In section 1, I review the arguments for the currently standard theory against the suggestion to broaden the range of data, and in section 2. I try to give a brief historical account of the origins of the presuppositions of the orthodox theory.The current official conception of the goal of syntactic theory is that it is to distinguish syntactically well-formed strings of a given language from those that are not syntactically well-formed, and to provide structural descriptions of the sentences.
Scientific Realism and Naturalistic Epistemology
Authors: Boyd Richard 
Published: January 2016

By “scientific realism” philosophers ordinarily mean the doctrine that non-observational terms in scientific theories should typically be interpreted as putative referring expressions, and that when the semantics of theories is understood that way (“realistically“), scientific theories embody the sorts of propositions whose (approximate) truth can be confirmed by the ordinary experimental methods which scientists employ. There are as many possible versions of scientific realism as there are possible accounts of how “theoretical terms” refer and of how the actual methods of science function to produce knowledge.What I will do in this paper is to explore the consequences of one such version of scientific realism, a version which embodies the implicatures as well as the implications of the realist slogan that reality is prior to thought.
Hermeneutical Realism and Scientific Observation
Authors: Heelan Patrick A. 
Published: January 2016

This paper will summarize positions explained and defended more fully in my book, Space-Perception and The Philosophy of Science (Heelan 1982). The philosophical genre of this paper is that of a hermeneutical phenomenology, it addresses questions from the point of view of such writers as, E. Husserl, M. Heidegger, M. Merleau-Ponty, P. Ricoeur, and H-G. Gadamer (see references). Those who are not familiar with this kind of writing may well find the exposition too brief to be persuasive; those who are, may wonder at the audacity of applying such methods of analysis to the natural sciences. It is unlikely that either group will be entirely pleased with the content of what I have to say.My principal theses are the following: (1) reality is the content of World, and this comprises whatever is or can be given directly in a public way within perception;
Aleatory Explanations Expanded
Authors: Humphreys Paul 
Published: January 2016

In my paper “Aleatory Explanations” (Humphreys 1981a) I presented the rudiments of a theory of explanation which had the following features:1)Explanations of indeterministic phenomena are given by means of a specification of the contributing and counteracting causes involved;2)Probability values are not themselves explanatory and explanations need not specify probability values;3)Maximal specificity criteria are not part of the logical criteria of adequacy for explanations;4)Partial explanations which are nevertheless true can thus be given;5)Explanations of this kind show that the traditional ‘X because Y’ pattern of explanation is inadequate for indeterministic causal explanations and must be replaced by ‘X because Y, despite Z’.In that paper, I restricted myself to explanations of events and their complements, involving only direct causes in two-state Markov chains.
Causal Processes and Causal Interactions
Authors: Ehring Douglas 
Published: January 2016

Wesley Salmon in Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World offers a causal account of scientific explanation (Salmon 1984). In this context he develops an analysis of the concept of causality, an analysis which marks a break with various contemporary theories of causation including the Neo-Humean view, counterfactual theory, and manipulability theory. His analysis also goes well beyond the confines of probabilistic accounts such as that developed by Suppes. Salmon attempts to explicate the concept of causation by way of two concepts, that of a causal process and that of a causal interaction, which, he defines with some precision and care. In this paper I will present a series of problem cases which run contrary to Salmon’s line of analysis.In developing his analysis of causation Salmon makes use of the notion of a “process”.
Leibniz on Continuity
Authors: Arthur Richard T.W. 
Published: January 2016

Leibniz never tired of stressing the fundamental importance of the concept of continuity for philosophy, nor was he shy of attributing major importance to his own struggle through “the labyrinth of the continuum” for the subsequent development of his whole system of thought. Unfortunately, however, his own thought on the subject is something of a labyrinth itself, and from a modern point of view many of his pronouncements are apt to seem blatantly contradictory.Certain quotations seem to commit him unambiguously to atomism. Thus to de Voider he writes: “Matter is not continuous, but discrete…. The same holds for changes, which are not truly continuous.” (To de Voider, 11th October 1705: G.II.279).2
The Character of Galilean Evidence
Authors: Pitt Joseph C. 
Published: January 2016

Concerning evidence there are two important questions: (1) what is going to count as evidence? and (2) what are the appropriate means for employing evidence? These two problems pervade the analysis of the scientific process. They are with us as much today as in Galileo’s time. For example, with respect to contemporary arguments between Evolutionists and Scientific Creationists, if the issue is taken in its cognitive rather than its political dimension, the entire discussion turns on the criteria for acceptable, evidence, i.e, the heart of the problem is disagreement over the status of the data one wants to invoke as evidence.Many of the disputes between Galileo and his philosophical, interlocutors in his Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems turn on some of the same issues that bedevil the debate between evolutionists and creationists, i.e., what is going to count as evidence?
The Paradox of Instrumentalism
Authors: Papineau David 
Published: January 2016

J.J.C. Smart says that instrumentalism makes it “surprising that the world should be such as to contain these odd and ontologically disconnected phenomena…. Is It not odd that the phenomena of the world should be such as to make a purely instrumental theory true? On the other hand, if we interpret the theory in a realist way, then we have no need for such a cosmic coincidence…. A lot of surprising facts no longer seem surprising….” (Smart 1963, p. 39).Intuitively Smart seems right. The instrumentalist, who believes the observational consequences of some theory, but eschews any commitment to the theory itself, ends up believing something far less plausible than the realist, who can account for those consequences in terms of the theory.
Sociobiology and the Semantic View of Theories
Authors: Horan Barbara L. 
Published: January 2016

The semantic view of scientific theories has been defended as more adequate than the “received” view, especially with respect to biological theories (Beatty 1980, 1981; Thompson 1983). However, the semantic view has not been evaluated on its own terms. In this paper I first show how the theory of sociobiology propounded by E.O. Wilson (1975) can be understood on the semantic approach. I then discuss the criticism that Wilson’s theory is beset by the problem of unreliable generalizations. I suggest that this problem results from the use of the model-building strategy in theory. I conclude that the problem is pressing enough to impugn the semantic view as an adequate account of sociobiological theory.According to proponents of the semantic view of theories, scientific theories function to specify a class of “models,” interpretations, or representations of their postulates.
Probabilistic Reasoning in Expert Systems Reconstructed in Probability Semantics
Authors: Cooke Roger M. 
Published: January 2016

Probabilistic reasoning is traditionally represented by inferences of the following form (also called probabilistic explanations):where A and B are one-place predicates in a first order language, P(A | B) is the conditional probability of observing A among individuals having property B, and q is close to one.This argument is not logically valid, as the premises may be true while the conclusion is false. Moreover, as it stands, the premises do not even make the conclusion plausible. It may be the case that 90% of the population dies before the age of 85, and that individual j is a member of the population, but this in itself does not make it plausible that individual j will die before the age of 85.
The Transformation of Human Sociobiology
Authors: Kitcher Philip 
Published: January 2016

Critics of human sociobiology need a new image. Intense as the joys of strangling infant sciences may be, they do eventually fade, leaving a desire to nurture some more healthy enterprise. In this essay, I shall attempt to complement the critique given in my (1985) by offering a blueprint for the transformation of human sociobiology.I start with a point that seems to me essential for understanding the complex of issues surrounding sociobiology: sociobiology is highly diverse. Restricting our attention to what I have called “narrow sociobiology” (Kitcher 1985, p. 115), the application of ideas from evolutionary biology to the study of animal social behavior, we find a range of studies and programs that differ in scope, rigor, and intention. Almost everyone who is concerned with the evolution and function of social behavior pays homage to Darwin (for exceptions, see Ho and Saunders 1984), but this common commitment that covers thinkers as diverse as Richard Lewontin and E. O. Wilson provides no grand conclusion about the nature of sociality in humans or in animals generally.
Reflections on Empirical, External and Ideological Studies of Science
Authors: Koertge Noretta 
Published: January 2016

Baltas calls for an empirical theory of the structure and development of Physics—one which gives a unified ac count of both the internal and external aspects of the science. In this paper he proposes a tripartite structure for physical theory and describes the role of socially determined ideological “assumptions” upon that structure.Since there is very little social consensus amongst philosophers today on many elements of his project, before discussing his proposal in detail it might be helpful to sort out some of the widely disparate enterprises which are associated with terms such as external or ideological when applied to the study of science. Baltas does not always use these terms in quite the ways I would expect.
Which Universal?
Authors: Peterson Philip L. 
Published: January 2016

D.A. Armstrong’s account (1983, intimately influenced by Tooley 1977 and Swoyer 1982) of natural laws is that they arerelations between universals.Armstrong doesn’t simply hold that laws are some relationships or other between universals. He also holds that they are first-order universals themselves (1983, pp. 89-90). Each ordinary law-say,causallaw-is numerically identical to some first-order universal. This is a striking, seemingly incredible hypothesis. What is Armstrong thinking of when he says (1983, p. 90):I propose that the state of affairs, the law, N(F,G), is a dyadic universal, that is, a relation, holding between states of affairs. Suppose that a particular object, a, is F, and so, because of the law N(F,G), it, a, is also G. This state of affairs, an instantiation of the law, has the form Rab, where R = N(F,G), a = a’s being F, and b, = b’s being G:(N(F,G))(a's being F, b's being G).
Neo-Skinnerian Psychology: A Non-Radical Behaviorism
Authors: Smith Terry L. 
Published: January 2016

Radical Behaviorism makes the implausible claim that “the appeal to mind explains nothing at all” (Skinner 1971, p. 186). Clearly, such a claim (if accepted) would lend strong support to the Skinnerian research program, if only because it would eliminate the major competition. But what support remains when such a claim is not accepted? This paper shall argue that the Skinnerian research program need not depend upon the supposition that there is something scientifically illicit or vacuous about the explanations offered by mentalistic psychology. Distinguishing Radical Behaviorism from a position that grows out of Skinner’s writings from 1938 through 1950, it asserts that the latter position provides a conception of the behavior analytic program that is compatible with the basic claims of cognitive and folk psychology.We may give a rough definition of this position by following Cummins (1983) in distinguishing between two types of scientific theory.
Testing for Convergent Realism
Authors: Aronson Jerrold L. 
Published: January 2016

In “A Confutation of Convergent Realism,” Larry Laudan presents the realist with these fascinating challenges:What,then,of realism itself as a ‘scientific’ hypothesis?…If realism has made some novel predictions or been subjected to carefully controlled tests, one does not learn about it from the literature of contemporary realism. (1981, p. 46.)He then goes on to say:No proponent of realism has sought to show that realism satisfies those stringent empirical demands which the realist himself minimally insists on when appraising scientific theories. (1981, p. 46)Not only do I fully endorse what Laudan says in these passages, I think it is time to take him up on these challenges.Laudan’s position has been that scientific progress can be explained without having to appeal to verisimilitude. Instead, we explain the success of a scientific theory in terms of its subjugation to the cannons of experimental controls: those theories that have been put through proper testing during the course of their formulation are the ones that are most likely to be reliable. (1984, pp. 96-101)
General Causation
Authors: Carroll John W. 
Published: January 2016

Philosophers of science, e.g. Cartwright (1979) and Skyrms (1980), have given accounts of general causation in probabilistic terms; not surprising since we often accept general causal sentences as true despite being aware of apparent counterinstances. Consider:(E1) Smoking is a cause of heart attacks.We accept (E1) as true though aware of smokers who never have a heart attack. Here I quickly review familiar problems in two existing probabilistic accounts, offer a new objection, and suggest the beginnings of an alternative account.The traditional model of general causation maintains that causes, and only causes, raise the probability of the effect That is:(TM) F is a cause of G if and only if .Despite some intuitive appeal, the traditional model faces at least three basic objections. First, consider cases of epiphenomena in which there are properties F, G, and H such that F is a cause of G, F is a cause of H, but G is not a cause of H and H is not a cause of G.
String Theory, Quantum Gravity and Locality
Authors: Taylor Cyrus C. 
Published: January 2016

In this talk, I'd like to explain a little bit about what string theory is, why theoretical physicists are so excited about it, and why I think that it will have a rather profound impact on some of our ideas about the structure of the physical world.Let me begin by reviewing the way we think about quantum mechanical particles in a relativistic setting. The classical dynamics of the theory is specified by assuming that the action for a given particle trajectory is proportional to the relativistic interval traversed by the particle. If one sets up a canonical formalism with the variable parametrizing the particle trajectory playing the role of time, then one finds that the four-momentum of the particle is constrained, with the constraint just being the relativistic relation between the mass, energy, and three-momentum of a particle. The particle thus lives on a subspace of the full phase space, and one finds that on this subspace, the Hamiltonian for the system vanishes.
From Micro to Macro: A Solution to the Measurement Problem of Quantum Mechanics
Authors: Bub Jeffrey 
Published: January 2016

Philosophical debate on the measurement problem of quantum mechanics has, for the most part, been confined to the non-relativistic version of the theory. Quantizing quantum field theory, or making quantum mechanics relativistic, yields a conceptual framework capable of dealing with the creation and annihilation of an indefinite number of particles in interaction with fields, i.e. quantum systems with an infinite number of degrees of freedom. I want to show that a solution to the standard measurement problem is available if we exploit the properties of the infinite quantum models available in this broader conceptual framework.There is a qualitative difference between quantum systems with an infinite number of degrees of freedom and quantum systems with a finite number of degrees of freedom. In the infinite case, there exist many unitarily inequivalent irreducible Hilbert space representations of the algebra of observables of the system. In the finite case, there is only one such representation.
Confirmation, Complexity and Social Laws
Authors: Kincaid Harold 
Published: January 2016

Two attitudes largely dominate current philosophic thinking about the social sciences. One argues that the social science are not and cannot be real sciences—because the social sciences have not and probably cannot produce anything like the laws of the natural sciences. The other attitude—coming from the hermeneutic tradition—defends the social sciences, but only by arguing that laws are irrelevant to social explanation. Disparate as they are, both traditions share the assumption that laws in the social sciences are beyond reach. In this paper I argue the opposite thesis—viz. that social laws are both a possibility and actuality.Philosophers have typically approached laws in the social sciences by an old-fashioned route—by means of relatively a priori conceptual analysis. One or several necessary conditions for laws are identified, usually by appeal to intuitions. Then it is argued that no alleged law in the social sciences could have the necessary features.
Ceteris Paribus Conditions as Prior Knowledge: A View from Economics
Authors: de Marchi Neil , Kim Jinbang 
Published: January 2016

We take it that what is intended by “laws” in the title of this session—“Confirming Ceteris Paribus Laws in the Social Sciences”—is reliable rather than fortuitous relations, that is, Millian “tendencies,” with “forcing” properties. These refer to causes which do their work whether or not interfered with, or even counteracted by, other causes. Early econometricians had this in mind when they referred to “autonomous” relations (or behavioral relations). We entirely beg the question of how we know when we are dealing with genuine causes and with the related question how we come by autonomous relations. Instead, we concentrate upon some implications of our supposing that we can identify the experimental conditions necessary to confirm the operation of whatever tendency is in question.Another expression for these experimental conditions is the steps necessary in order to transform a theoretical model into an estimable one.
Paradigms, Populations and Problem-Fields: Approaches to Disagreement
Authors: Allchin Douglas 
Published: January 2016

How do we characterize theoretical disagreement and how does this translate into strategies for practicing scientists? I integrate Kuhn’s (1962) notions of paradigms and problem-fields with Hull’s (1982,1988) concept of populational variation and Shapere’s (1974) characterization of domains in interpreting the Ox-Phos Controversy in bioenergetics (1961-1977). The analysis highlights the differences between intraparadigm disagreement (based on proposed solutions to shared problems) and interparadigm disagreement (based on the problems themselves and views of relevant domain).Kuhn (1959,1962) introduced the notion that a single, uniform paradigm guides ‘normal science’. He further suggested that scientific communities undergo gestalt-like changes in research focus, implying that all disagreement is based on ‘incommensurable’ paradigms. Philosophers and historians of science concerned largely with how consensus is established (see Laudan 1984; Laudan and Laudan 1989) have found this problematic as a universal model (e.g., Lakatos and Musgrave 1970; Laudan 1977).
Does Representational Content Arise from Biological Function?
Authors: Hall Richard J. 
Published: January 2016

Let us assume that some organisms, humans at least and the other higher animals, have internal states and behavioral states that represent things external to themselves. One of the questions that everyone would like answered about these states is: In virtue of what does such a representational state get the specific content that it has? An answer to this question that’s popular just now is: In virtue of its biological function. I believe there is a deep reason why such an answer can’t work. I shall present that reason in this paper.First, we need to be clear about the notion of biological function that’s being appealed to here. In particular, we need to distinguish two fairly different ways of thinking about function. We could think of something’s function as what it contributes to the present functioning or output of some complex system of which it is a part. Roughly, this is Cummins’ view in (Cummins 1984).
Jarrett Completeness and Superluminal Signals
Authors: Kronz Frederick M. 
Published: January 2016

Bell (1964) demonstrated that if two restrictions are imposed on the hypothetical hidden variables supposed to underlie quantum mechanical states, then it is possible to derive an inequality that is violated by certain predictions of QM (Quantum Mechanics); the predictions concern pairs of systems whose states are strongly correlated. The two restrictions are denoted herein as SL (Strong Locality) and HA (Hidden Autonomy)1, and the inequality as BI (the Bell Inequality). Since SL and HA together entail BI, and QM violates BI, it follows that any HVT (Hidden-Variables Theory) for QM must violate either SL or HA.It is well known that a condition known as PA (Perfect Anti-correlation) was also used by Bell to derive the inequality. PA says that parallel experiments (experiments with parallel spin-analyzer orientations) never yield the same results.