bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A Reply to “Induction and Objectivity”
Authors: Jackson Frank 
Published: November 2002

In “Induction and Objectivity” [1], F. John Clendinnen puts forwards a vindication of induction. I wish to argue that the vindication fails. As Clendinnen's argument is complex and presents certain difficulties it is necessary and only fair to quote his summary of it ([1], p. 218).“I shall attempt to vindicate induction by showing that it is the only possible way of predicting that is objective, and further that, while objectivity is not a necessary condition for success in predicting, objective methods are the only methods which we could have any possible reason to believe possessed a property which is a necessary condition for success. This property I will call ”concordance“. An objective method is one that ensures that all whose use it will agree in their conclusions.... To say that a method is concordant is simply to say that there are no contradictory conclusions drawn from it. A method could possess this property as a consequence of its being objective; but on the other hand it is possible for a method of predicting to be concordant merely by chance.If a predicting method is to be successful it must be concordant; for if there were a number of conflicting predictions made about the outcome of the one situation it would only be possible for one of them to be correct, and we should not describe as successful a method which had at least as many false applications as correct. Thus concordance is a necessary condition of success even in a single occasion of predicting. What, then is the relation between an objective and a concordant method?It would be possible to have a concordant method by chance; for example, if a method should never be used to make more than one prediction about the outcome of any one situation it would ipso facto be concordant. Alternatively, the different predictions of a non-objective method may by chance agree. Thus objectivity is not a necessary condition of concordance nor, consequently, of being a successful method. However, in selecting a satisfactory method of predicting we must ensure that it is concordant. If we choose an objective method we do ensure this. Further, there is no other way of doing this; for by definition any method which of its nature is concordant is objective. The possibility of a non-objective method being concordant depends on contingencies beyond the control of the method or of any particular person who adopts it; for it is always possible for others to adopt the same method and make predictions about the same situations.Thus, knowing that concordance is a necessary condition of a successful method and knowing that the only possible reason for expecting any method to be concordant is that it is objective, we may conclude that it is reasonable to adopt a method if it can be shown that it is the only objective method.“
A Remark on Hempel's Replies to His Critics
Authors: Dietz Stephens M. 
Published: November 2002

One of the most difficult problems facing anyone who would discuss Professor Carl Hempel's thesis about explanation is the following: which of the many objections that have been made are actually relevant to the thesis ? Professor Hempel has claimed that several of these objections are not relevant at all ([1], pp. 412-414). In order to evaluate such replies, let me first state what I take to be the three claims which constitute Professor Hempel's thesis.His first claim is that all adequate scientific explanations possess a certain property:... all scientific explanations and their everyday counterparts claim or presuppose at least implicitly the deductive or inductive subsumability of whatever is to be explained under general laws or theoretical principles ([1], p. 425).
Art as Cognitive: Beyond Scientific Realism
Authors: Foss Laurence 
Published: November 2002

Thesis : Art like science radically affects our perceiving and thinking, and the two are substantially alike in that together—along with an inherited “natural” language system with which they overlap—they enable us to articulate the world.Science has been advanced as the measure of all things: scientific realism. By implication, art pertains to beauty, science truth. Science effects conceptual breakthroughs, changes our models of natural order. On the contrary (I argue), as a nonverbal symbol system art similarly affects paradigm-induced expectations. Substantively there is no difference in the way each enables us to articulate or measure the world : symbolic realism.The myth of resemblance as a criterion of representation—imitation as a one-one relation—has, at least since the time of Plato, obscured this truth. Once the distinction between representational and nonrepresentational art falls, the true nature of artist (like scientist) as maker is illumined. The artist, the scientist (disciplinarian), the cosmologist (those responsible for the formulation of so-called natural languages—in time all of us) make the world or, what practically amounts to the same thing, the known, perceived world. This is the claim of the symbolic realist. Is symbolic realism itself only a watershed ? What implication does this critique have for assessing the role of the philosopher today?
A Criticism of the Use of the Concept of “Dominant Group” in Arguments for Evolutionary Progressivem
Authors: Travis Janet L. 
Published: November 2002

I criticize the particular argument for evolutionary progressivism which is based on the concept of a series of “dominant life forms.”My procedure is to show that there is no rigorous definition for the concept of “dominant life form.”I examine several attempts to define this concept by Julian Huxley and a new formulation of the concept by G. G. Simpson and show that none of the criteria either of these men develop for determining which groups of organisms can be classified as dominant are adequate to exclude any groups of organisms from the classification. The concept proves so broad as to be meaningless. Since it is a key concept in the particular argument for progressivism that I discuss, the criticism of the concept demonstrates the argument to be invalid.
Observing and What it Entails
Authors: Cornman James W. 
Published: November 2002

In the preceding article, [3], Peter Machamer states three objections to my recent attempt to define ‘observation term’. While I believe that all Machamer's objections are mistaken, as I will try to show, his discussion does touch on two problems which have forced revisions. Both his first and second objections are that my definition is too restrictive because its second necessary condition for a term ‘O‘ being an observation term rules out too many terms which are obviously observation terms. The condition is :For any term, 'P' if 'There is an O (O-thing)' entails the (contingent) statement, 'There is a P-thing', then ‘Under certain conditions, some P-thing would appear as P to any standard observer’ is true.
Degrees of Interpretation
Authors: Phillips John N. 
Published: November 2002

What has been learned about logic by means of “uninterpreted” logistic systems can be supplemented by comparing the latter with systems which are more uninterpreted, as well as with others which are less uninterpreted than the well-known logistic systems. By somewhat extending the meaning of ‘uninterpreted’, I hope to establish certain claims about the nature of logistic systems and also to cast some light on the nature of “logic itself.”My procedure involves looking at three major “degrees” of interpretation: first, systems uninterpreted both semantically and syntactically, second, systems uninterpreted semantically but not syntactically, and third, systems uninterpreted neither semantically nor syntactically. We shall be forced to limit ourselves to the truth-functional part of logic in this brief study. What are usually called uninterpreted systems can be seen on a continuum of “degrees” of interpretation, from ordinary reasoning at one extreme to a “thoroughly uninterpreted system” at the other.“Logic itself” apparently lies nearer to the interpreted, deformalized end of the spectrum than to the uninterpreted, formalized end. Logic is not identical with any particular logistic system, but is that which the particular logistic systems aim to formalize or model or capture. I propose that it is that minimum set of logical, rather than syntactical, primitive terms, definitions, and rules which is needed to generate logically, rather than syntactically, the principles of ordinary reasoning as it is used by logicians in their metalinguistic discussions and informal proofs of metatheorems. This minimum set is somewhat larger than the primitive bases of most logistic systems; its truth-functional part is presented in the “Deformalized Logic” at degree twelve.
Physics by Convention
Authors: Glymour Clark 
Published: November 2002

“It ain't nuthin' until I call it.”Bill Guthrie, UmpireNumerous criticisms of Adolf Grünbaum's account of conventions in physics have been published ([1], [2], [3], [4], [13]), and he has replied to most of them ([6], [8]). Nonetheless, there seem to me to be good reasons for offering further criticism. In the first place Grünbaum's philosophy seems to me at least partly an extrapolation of one aspect of the views on conventions developed by Reichenbach and others. Since I think many of the issues which Reichenbach attempted to settle in his various discussions of conventions in physics are genuine and important, and I also think that those aspects of his views on which Grünbaum has focused are among the least satisfactory, it seems important to suggest questions and answers about conventions in physics which may develop more satisfactory Reichenbachian themes. Secondly, Grünbaum's philosophy centers on a distinction, that between extrinsic and intrinsic properties and relations, which has never been made satisfactorily clear either by Grünbaum or by his critics. Until it is clarified we will remain unsure of just what he is claiming and why we should think it true or think it false. Finally, Grünbaum's replies to his critics, especially his most recent reply, [9], involve unusually important claims which fail to be buttressed by the arguments he gives. I have in mind such claims as that we can learn something important about the ontological status of properties and relations by examining descriptions of them, that on (what I take to be) the most straightforward and literal interpretation, the general theory of relativity is inconsistent, and that the foremost advocates of geometrodynamics, Clifford and Wheeler, were and are enmeshed in contradiction. My own view is that all of these claims are dubious or false, but I shall be less concerned with establishing their falsity than with discrediting the arguments offered for them.
On Arguments Against the Empirical Adequacy of Finite State Grammar
Authors: Daly Richard 
Published: November 2002

In the first part of this paper, two arguments, one by Chomsky, and one by Bar-Hillel and Shamir, are examined in detail and rejected. Both arguments purport to show that the structure of English precludes its having a finite state grammar which correctly enumerates just the well formed sentences of English.In the latter part of the paper I consider the problem of supporting claims about the structure and properties of a natural language when no grammar for the language has yet been accepted.
A Comment on Ruse's Analysis of Function Statements
Authors: Wright Larry 
Published: November 2002

Michael Ruse has offered an interesting and insightful analysis of function statements in biology. The analysis he gives of statements of the form ‘The function of x in z is to do y‘ is :
(i)z does y by using x.(ii)y is an adaptation ([4], p. 91).The first thing to notice about this formulation is the peculiarity of step (ii). There are many cases in which we would naturally say that x was the adaptation, instead of y; or perhaps we might say that everything asserted in step (i) constituted the adaptation. For example, the function of the duck's webbed feet is to enable it to swim. But we would commonly and naturally say that the adaptation was the webbing, not the swimming. It seems to me that Ruse's insistence on the formulation in (ii) points to the major difficulty of his analysis : and understanding what drives him to this unnatural formulation suggests the way out of those difficulties.
Countering a Counter-Intuitive Probability
Authors: Rose Lynn E. 
Published: November 2002

Professor Copi provides us with the following example:Remove all cards except aces and kings from a deck, so that only eight cards remain, of which four are aces and four are kings. From this abbreviated deck, deal two cards to a friend. If he looks at his cards and announces (truthfully) that his hand contains an ace, what is the probability that both his cards are aces? If he announces instead that one of his cards is the ace of spades, what is the probability then that both his cards are aces? (These two probabilities are not the same!) ([1], p. 433)
Statistical Explanation and Ergodic Theory
Authors: Sklar Lawrence 
Published: November 2002

Some philosphers of science of an empiricist and pragmatist bent have proposed models of statistical explanation, but have then become sceptical of the adequacy of these models. It is argued that general considerations concerning the purpose of function of explanation in science which are usually appealed to by such philosophers show that their scepticism is not well taken; for such considerations provide much the same rationale for the search for statistical explanations, as these philosophers have characterized them, as they do for lawlike explanations.But, it is further argued, a significant piece of what is frequently offered as an explanation of well known phenomena in statistical mechanics, fails to meet this general “pragmatic rationale” for statistical, or indeed any kind of, explanation. The question then arises whether the physicists have misconstrued the value of this piece of physical theorizing, ergodic theory, taking it to be explanatory when it is actually not; or whether, instead, the philosopher's account of just what is genuinely explanatory is too narrow.
On Theories
Authors: Alder Michael D. 
Published: November 2002

An axiom set is given which purports to formalize the notion of a “theory involving measurement.” The abstract objects satisfying these axioms are examined, and some candidates for measures of complexity are considered.This framework allows us to discuss some forms of a degree of confirmation. Both “complexity” and “degree of confirmation” appear to be intimately bound up with geometrical aspects of these “theories” which derive from measurement considerations, suggesting that the concepts may be inapplicable to more “general theories.”The view is taken throughout that the well known paradoxes indicate inadequacies of the linguistic apparatus and that the axiomatization here presented is an attempt to construct an adequate language for the relevant portion of the world. This position is not defended in the paper.
Fundamental Measurement of Force and Newton's First and Second Laws of Motion
Authors: Krantz David H. 
Published: November 2002

The measurement of force is based on a formal law of additivity, which characterizes the effects of two or more configurations on the equilibrium of a material point. The representing vectors (resultant forces) are additive over configurations. The existence of a tight interrelation between the force vector and the geometric space, in which motion is described, depends on observations of partial (directional) equilibria; an axiomatization of this interrelation yields a proof of part two of Newton's second law of motion.The present results (which were derived from a curious and deep isomorphism between force measurement and trichromatic color measurement) yield a kind of subunit, which needs to be incorporated into more complete axiomatizations of mechanics that would fulfill the Mach–Kirchhoff program.
Maxwell's Demon and Computation
Authors: Laing Richard 
Published: November 2002

In this paper we show how a form of Maxwellian Demon can be interpreted as a computing automaton. We then point out some ways in which the Demon systems can be generalized, and briefly describe and discuss the properties of some of the corresponding automata. It is shown that a generalized Maxwell Demon system can carry out arbitrary Turing computations.Finally, the association developed between classes of thermodynamic systems and classes of computational systems is employed to suggest approaches to some fundamental problems of the relationships between computation, the information obtained by computation, and energy.
More Philosophical Aspects of Molecular Biology
Authors: Wendell-Waechtler S. , Levy E. 
Published: November 2002

In his [1], David Berlinski explores, among other things, both what could be called a “sophisticated” and a “basic” analogy between languages and the genetic code. The basic analogy stems from the observation that the relationship between English and “Morse” appears to be formally similar to the relationship between DNA and protein. That is, just as sentences of the English language can be encoded into Morse, sequences of bases within strands of DNA are “transcribed” into polypeptides. (See Table 1.) To some, this “basic” analogy(NB: There is no isomorphism between B″ and P′ since some codons do not code for amino acids; these codons appear to act as signals, e.g. for terminating polypeptide chains. Also note that the code is degenerate and thus G is not an embedding.)
Relative Truth, The Correspondence Principle and Absolute Truth
Authors: Nowak Leszek 
Published: November 2002

The present paper is intended to take up the basic issue in Marxist epistemology: does the development of human cognition include mechanisms that ensure the attainment of, or approximation to, the absolute truth?But to take up this issue we have to define the concept of absolute truth. This is why the paper begins with comment on the assumptions we adopt. This is followed by explanations of the concept of the absolute truth and that of relative truth and some of derivative concepts, too. Section 3 is concerned with the problem of whether the absolute truth is attainable, and with the role played in the process by the correspondence principle, which is reconstructed in a specified way.
The Bifurcation of Scientific Theories and Indeterminacy of Translation
Authors: Hockney Donald 
Published: November 2002

In this essay I present a statement of Quine's indeterminacy thesis in its general form. It is shown that the thesis is not about difficulties peculiar to so-called “radical translation.” It is a general thesis about meaning and reference with important consequences for any theory of our theories and beliefs. It is claimed that the thesis is inconsistent with Quine's realism, his doctrine of the relativity of reference, and that the argument for the thesis has the consequence that the concept of stimulus meaning is empty.The sense in which linguistic science, as a branch of behavioral science, is “part of physics” is discussed. An alternative to Quine's view of the nature and content of linguistic science is proposed. It is shown to be consistent with Quine's assumptions concerning the legitimate scope of behavioral science and not to involve the notions of analyticity, synonymy and ‘ “prevalent attitudes toward meaning, idea and proposition” rejected by Quine.
Is Preacceleration of Particles in Dirac's Electrodynamics a Case of Backward Causation? The Myth of Retrocausation in Classical Electrodynamics
Authors: Grünbaum Adolf 
Published: November 2002

Is it a “conceptual truth” or only a logically contingent fact that, in any given kind of case, an event x which asymmetrically causes (“produces”) an event y likewise temporally precedes y or at least does not temporally succeed y? A bona fide physical example in which the cause retroproduces the effect would show that backward causation is no less conceptually possible than forward causation. And it has been claimed ([9], p. 151; [4], p. 41) that in Dirac's classical electrodynamics (relativistic and non-relativistic), the preacceleration of charged particles before any forces are applied to them furnishes a genuine case of retrocausation by later forces.An exposition of the pertinent physics furnishes the basis for arguing the following: Whereas the non-zero acceleration of a neutral NEWTONIAN mass particle is, of course, causally connected as such to the simultaneously applied non-zero force, the non-zero acceleration of a DIRACIAN charged particle is not causally connected at all as such to the applied forces. A fortiori, in Dirac's electrodynamics, the applied forces do not qualify asymmetrically as the causes of a non-zero acceleration as such; nor does a non-zero acceleration as such qualify as an effect produced by forces. This is shown by means of two considerations as follows: (1) In Dirac's theory, no functional dependence of the value of a non-zero acceleration on the weighted time-average of the forces is vouchsafed as a matter of physical LAW alone without any value of a constant of integration, just as no Newtonian law(s) alone can guarantee a functional dependence of the non-zero value of the velocity of a Newtonian mass particle on the applied forces. Instead, both functional dependencies alike are vouchsafed only with the crucial aid of some de facto boundary condition pertaining to either the past or to the future, so that (2) Non-zero preaccelerations of Diracian charged particles can no more be causally attributed as such to the retrocausal action of later forces than non-zero “prevelocities” of Newtonian mass particles can be held to be caused as such by later applied forces. The retrocausal interpretation of Dirac's preaccelerations is just as invalid as the retrocausal interpretation of Newtonian prevelocities.
The Sum Rule is Well-Confirmed
Authors: Glymour Clark 
Published: November 2002

Simon Kochen and Ernst Specker's well-known argument ([6]) against hidden variable theories for quantum mechanics is also an argument against the possibility of quantum systems having, simultaneously, precise values for all of the dynamical quantities associated with such systems. Devices for defeating the argument were in the literature even before its publication, but recently Arthur Fine has raised a new difficulty ([4]). Fine points out that Kochen and Specker's argument requires the following principles:Sum Rule: At all times, in all states, the value of the quantity with operator A + B is the sum of the values of the quantity with operator A and the quantity with operator B, provided A, B commute.Product Rule: At all times, in all states, the value of the quantity with operator AB is the product of the values of the quantities with operators A and B, provided A, B commute.
Probabilities: Reasonable or True?
Authors: Coffa J. Alberto 
Published: November 2002

Hempel's high probability requirement asserts that any rationally acceptable answer to the question ‘Why did event X occur?‘ must offer information which shows that X was to be expected at least with reasonable probability. Salmon rejected this requirement in his S-R model. This led to a series of paradoxical consequences, such as the assertion that an explanation of an event can both lower its probability and make it arbitrarily low, and the assertion that the explanation of an outcome would have qualified as an explanation of its non-occurrence as well.We argue that if inductive explanations are to be seen as generalizations of the causal-deterministic model, or if they are to be seen as satisfying the requirement—fulfilled by the D-N model—that explanations ought to identify certain features of the universe that are nomically responsible for the explanadum event, then the high probability requirement seems to be unacceptable. If this is so, a realistically inspired theory of inductive explanation will be committed to the paradoxes that follow from Salmon's model.