bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Intentionality
Authors: Pettit Philip 
Published: October 2003

AbstractTo be an intentional system, to be a system which has beliefs and desires and the like, is to be exposed perceptually to a certain sort of environment and to interact with that environment in a way that makes sense, and makes sense nonaccidentally, in belief–desire terms. There are regularities characteristic of beliefs and desires, regularities that dictate both the effect of certain sort of evidence on what beliefs and desires are maintained, and the effect of certain sorts of belief–desire profiles on what responses are evinced. Those regularities will typically identify what it is to be evidentially rational in the attitudes one holds and responsively rational in the responses one makes, though they may also point us toward obstacles that get in the way of rational performance. A system will count as an intentional agent to the extent that its interactions with its environment, or at least some of its interactions, are governed by such regularities.
Thought
Authors: Pettit Philip 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
A subject will be a thinking subject if and only if, among the things that it can do intentionally, it can do things that are designed to promote the prospect of its meeting various constraints of rationality – to promote the prospect of its having beliefs that are indeed true, for example, or the prospect of its performing actions that are indeed desirable. This chapter is devoted to building up a picture of what it is like for an intentional system to be, not just intentional, but capable of thought – to be a subject like one of us. I identify two crucial requirements that must be fulfilled by any thinking system and most of the chapter is given to how these are met in the human case. I describe the first requirement as that of intentional ascent, the second as that of rule‐following. The discussion of rule‐following offers an “ethocentric” line on the well‐known Wittgensteinian problems.
For Individualism, Against Collectivism
Authors: Pettit Philip 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe issue between individualism and collectivism is whether society involves the presence of any regularities or forces which compromise the picture of human beings as intentional agents – the picture charted in the first part of the book. Many social scientists, and many philosophers too, have suggested that did we have a full understanding of the factors at work in social life, we would realize that the common‐or‐garden, intentional image of human beings is radically mistaken. The thinkers who maintain this view are collectivists, in the terminology used here, while those who reject it, those who deny that social forces or regularities are inimical in this way to intentional autonomy or autarchy, are individualists. The chapter argues the case for individualism, contrasting it with the core theses defended by collectivists. Many doctrines thought to be implicit in individualism, however, are quite independent of the doctrine as it is described here; thus it does not entail the atomism rejected in Ch. 4, nor the methodological individualism rejected in Ch. 5.
For Holism, Against Atomism
Authors: Pettit Philip 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This issue between individualism and collectivism has to do with how far individuals are compromised from on high, by aggregate or structural factors. It is a vertical issue, as we may put it. The issue between atomism and holism, by contrast, has a horizontal character. The question bears, not on the relation between high‐level factors and individual human beings but on the relation between the individuals themselves; it is the question as to how far people's social relationships with one another are of significance in their constitution as subjects and agents. Atomists occupy an extreme position according to which it is possible for a human being to develop all the capacities characteristic of our kind in total isolation from her fellows, if indeed she has any fellows; there is no incoherence, as it is often put, in the notion of the solitary individual. Holists deny this claim, arguing that one or another distinctive capacity – usually the capacity for thought – depends in a noncausal or constitutive way on the enjoyment of social relationships. Drawing on analysis in the first part of the book, this chapter maintains that thought does require social relationships in a constitutive manner, at least if thought is to be “commonable” – accessible in principle to others.
Social Theory
Authors: Pettit Philip 
Published: October 2003

AbstractWhat are the implications of holistic individualism for social explanation? This chapter argues that it points us toward a distinctive picture of individual‐level interpretation, under which we seek out the contents of people's thoughts – the reasons from which they implicitly or explicitly reason their way to action. It then goes on to show that nevertheless, it makes room for explanation of a sort that prescinds from such thoughts: structural and historicist explanation, which goes to high‐level or remote determinants; and rational‐choice explanation, which invokes a sort of self‐interest that has no obvious presence in day‐to‐day reasoning. Explanatory pluralism or ecumenism is quite consistent, then, with the ontological picture developed earlier.
Political Theory
Authors: Pettit Philip 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
There are three main sorts of theorizing found in modern political theory. First, the contract‐centered approach, which asks after the political institutions that people would choose if they were placed in a suitable position of choice. Second, the value‐centered approach, which asks after the goods or rights that institutions should realize and investigates the requirements of those values. And third, the institution‐centered approach, which takes different values and asks whether they are institutionally feasible, whether the arrangements they require can be reliably set up and sustained. The final chapter looks at each of these kinds of theorizing, exploring the impact of holistic individualism, in particular holism, on the different enterprises.
Illusions of Innocence: An Introduction
Authors: Unger Peter 
Published: October 2003

AbstractGiven the facility with which wealthy Western nations can reduce child mortality rates in developing countries, we should reject the view that it is not wrong to do nothing to lessen distant suffering as this view strongly conflicts with the truth about morality. This is the minority position known as Liberationism, first espoused by Peter Singer, according to which moral intuitions derive from sources far removed from basic moral values. Thus, moral intuitions (of the sort that it is acceptable not to alleviate distant suffering) not only fail to reflect those values but also often point in the opposite direction. This position contrasts with the majority view known as Preservationism, according to which our moral intuitions about particular cases reflect our basic moral values, and thus ground the claim that it is permissible not to lessen distant suffering. This chapter concludes with a brief discussion of some ethical puzzles that make the Liberationist approach more intuitively appealing.
Living High, Stealing and Letting Die: The Main Truth of Some Related Puzzles
Authors: Unger Peter 
Published: October 2003

AbstractA specific distortional tendency promotes our misleading responses to many moral cases; one example is the lenient response often given to cases of distant suffering. Various factors are relevant to this distortion including futility thinking, the conspicuousness of suffering, the difference between proper property and money, and the Doctrine of Double effect, according to which harm to others either as an end or as a means is more blameworthy than harm as a mere foreseen consequence. Upon consideration, we find that none of these factors adds support to the Preservationist approach. When conduct typically regarded as objectionable – lying, promise‐breaking, cheating, stealing – are needed to lessen the serious suffering of fairly innocent people, it is morally good, though not morally required, to engage in such conduct.
Between Some Harder Rocks and Rockier Hard Places: On Distortional Separating and Revelatory Grouping
Authors: Unger Peter 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This chapter considers, first, two strange psychological phenomena, and second, the distortional impact of projective separating. According to the psychological Phenomenon of No Threshold, if an action is deemed wrong by our moral intuitions, it remains wrong no matter how many people's suffering that action would alleviate. According to the Phenomenon of Near Tie‐Breaker, by contrast, to ensure a small gain in one area, it is acceptable to cause serious suffering in another area, provided that the suffering is balanced by the prevention of an equivalent amount of suffering in the first area. These conflicting phenomena, far from reflecting our basic moral principles, indicate the distortional power of projective separating (the view that we can distinguish between the persons linked to a given situation or problem and those outside that situation). Since the intuitions flowing from these conflicting phenomena cannot reflect our basic moral values, we may adopt a Liberationist view of the cases in which each of these phenomena arise.
Metaethics, Better Ethics: From Complex Semantics to Simple Decency
Authors: Unger Peter 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
To reconcile the unusual behavior judgments made in the preceding chapters with the more ordinary moral assessments made by most people, it is necessary to offer a semantic account of moral talk and moral thought. This semantic account is multidimensional and context sensitive. The terms that figure in moral judgments have an indexical aspect to their semantics and thus are sensitive to the contexts in which they are used, which allows the context to determine what is, for that situation, close enough to complete conformity with morality. When people seek to move outside the tough contexts set by Liberationism, a dim view rightly is taken of their mental or judgmental activity.
Causality and Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractBrings together 26 of Salmon's essays, including 7 that have never before been published and others that are difficult to find. Part I (Introductory Essays: Causality, Determinism, and Explanation) comprises five essays that presuppose no formal training in philosophy of science and form a background for subsequent essays. Parts II (Scientific Explanation) and III (Causality) contain Salmon's seminal work on these topics. The essays in Part II present aspects of the evolution of the author's thought about scientific explanation, and include critical examination of the claim that explanations are arguments and a carefully reasoned defense of explanatory asymmetry. Those in Part III develop the details of the theory sketched in Ch. 1. This theory identifies causal connections with physical processes that transmit causal influence from one space‐time location to another, and it incorporates probabilistic features of causality, keeping open the possibility that causality operates in indeterministic contexts. Part IV (Concise Overviews) offers survey articles that discuss advanced material but remain accessible to those outside philosophy of science. Essays in Part V (Applications to Other Disciplines: Archaeology and Anthropology, Astrophysics and Cosmology, and Physics) address specific issues, in particular, scientific disciplines, including the applicability of various models of explanation.
A New Look at Causality
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractOffers a novel approach, in terms of causal processes and causal interactions, to the fundamental philosophical problems raised by David Hume in the eighteenth century. His classic critique initiated a lively philosophical controversy that continues today. The author shows how twentieth‐century science, especially quantum mechanics with its challenges to determinism, has opened a new way to attack Hume's problems.
Comets, Pollen, and Dreams Some Reflections on Scientific Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractExamines three basic approaches to scientific explanation (the epistemic, modal, and ontic conceptions) that have been advocated by influential writers in the second half of the twentieth century and are still held today. It shows how fundamental differences in these approaches emerge when they confront explanation in scientific contexts in which statistical laws and functional explanations play major roles. The author argues that the ontic conception, in which events are explained by showing how they fit into the physical patterns found in the world, is best equipped to handle explanations that are problematic for the other approaches.
Scientific Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe unification tradition embraces the idea that scientific explanation consists in showing that apparently disparate phenomena can be seen to be fundamentally similar. Michael Friedman and Philip Kitcher, who accept different versions of this tradition, are contemporary proponents of the view. The causal tradition, advanced by Michael Scriven, and embraced in a modified version by the author, says – roughly and briefly – that to explain an event is to identify its cause. This chapter explores the possibility of rapprochement between these two dominant traditions regarding scientific explanation that have generally been seen as mutually incompatible. It shows how progress in the development of both approaches has eradicated many – perhaps all – of the grounds for conflict between them.
The Importance of Scientific Understanding
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractOutlines many different types of human understanding, and shows how scientific explanations enable us to understand the universe in which we live. It reflects on the great increases in scientific understanding during the past century, and exhibits the value of such understanding as we move into the twenty‐first century. The author recognizes the serious issues concerning values that face humanity at this time, and does not believe that science alone can solve these problems. He argues nevertheless that increased scientific understanding can furnish the information we all need to formulate a responsible social policy.
Causal and Theoretical Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractSupplements the statistical‐relevance (S‐R) model of scientific explanation with causal components. Some S‐R relationships can be explained by reference to spatiotemporally continuous causal connections. In this context, it is crucial to distinguish genuine causal processes – those with the ability to transmit marks – from pseudoprocesses. Other S‐R relationships are explained terms of common causes. It introduces causal processes and the common cause principle, and it presents the strategy for incorporating causal considerations into the theory of scientific explanation, while making it seem natural to appeal to unobserved or unobservable entities.
Why Ask, “Why?”?
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractAttempts to provide the general outlines of a causal theory of scientific explanation that can incorporate the virtues of both the standard inferential view and previous causal accounts. The new theory relies heavily upon a distinction between causal processes and causal interactions, and upon the principle of the common cause. Two types of causal forks, conjunctive and interactive, are distinguished; each is seen to have a distinct function in the account of scientific explanation. The common cause principle is invoked to show how unobservable entities play a fundamental explanatory role, thereby clarifying the explanatory power of theories.
Van Fraassen on Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. , Kitcher Philip 
Published: October 2003

AbstractCoauthored by Philip Kitcher, deals critically with the view – whose most influential proponent is Bas van Fraassen – that the traditional problems of scientific explanation can be resolved by means of pragmatic considerations alone. This approach, elaborated in 1980 in The Scientific Image , has found much favor among philosophers of science. As this chapter reveals, however, the traditional problems do not disappear when the resources of pragmatics are brought to bear. The authors show that if van Fraassen introduces constraints that allow him to avoid the “anything goes” theory of explanation, then he must face what he would regard as the unacceptable supposition that there is an objective virtue of theories distinct from their saving of the phenomena.
An “At‐At” Theory of Causal Influence
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe propagation of causal influences through space‐time plays a fundamental role in scientific explanation. Taking as point of departure, a basic distinction between causal interactions (which are localized in space‐time) and causal processes (which may extend through vast regions of space‐time), this chapter attempts an analysis of the concept of causal propagation on the basis of the ability of causal processes to transmit “marks.” The analysis rests upon the “at–at” theory of motion that has figured prominently in the resolution of Zeno's arrow paradox. It is argued that this explication does justice to the idea that causal processes can transmit causal influence without invoking anti‐Humean “powers” or “necessary connections.” Although at the time this essay was first written, the author treated causal processes in terms of capacity to transmit marks, the basic concept of transmission works equally well in the conserved quantities theory introduced in Ch. 16.
Probabilistic Causality
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractProvides a critical analysis and comparison of the theories of probabilistic causality offered by Hans Reichenbach I.J. Good and Patrick Suppes. Each of these theories faces some fundamental difficulties. In the end, the author argues that probabilistic causality cannot be explicated in terms of statistical relations among discrete events alone. Instead, we must take into account the physical processes that provide causal connections among events. In the time since this essay was first written, the literature on probabilistic causality has burgeoned, and the topic has become a major area of concern to many philosophers.
Causality Without Counterfactuals
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe author replaces his earlier explication of causal processes in terms of capacity for mark transmission with an analysis of the capacity for transmission of conserved quantities. This new theory was formulated in response to criticisms of Phil Dowe and Philip Kitcher. It relies heavily on modified versions of the seminal ideas of Phil Dowe, and overcomes a number of difficulties faced by the author's previous view. It eliminates a philosophically undesirable dependence on counterfactual conditions; it provides analyses of Y and λ types of causal interactions; and it suggests an avenue for avoiding problems about laws of nature.
Indeterminacy, Indeterminism, and Quantum Mechanics
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractUses a historical approach to explore the extent to which quantum theory mandates indeterminism. Drawing on important examples in the history of physics, it discusses explicitly the crucial distinction – often overlooked in the philosophical literature – between indeterminacy of physical quantities and causal indeterminism. It pursues at a more sophisticated level, issues raised in Ch. 2 concerning determinism and indeterminism in modern science. It concludes that quantum indeterminacy is an objective feature of the world, but that the jury is still out regarding quantum indeterminism.
Alternative Models of Scientific Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. , Salmon Merrilee H. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractCoauthored with Merrilee Salmon, addresses archaeologists and other anthropologists interested in the nature of scientific explanation. A group called the new archaeologists, concerned to assure the scientific status of archaeology, had become convinced that a sine qua non of science is the construction of explanations conforming to Hempel's D‐N model. The authors aim was to show that a much wider class of covering law models of explanation is available, and that others in this set are more suitable than the D‐N model for archaeology and anthropology. At the same time, they show that the so‐called systems approach, advocated by other archaeologists, has all of the shortcomings of the D‐N model without offering improvements in exchange.
Causality in Archaeological Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis chapter extends the discussion of the preceding chapter, and emphasizes the causal dimensions of explanation in archaeology. The author considers the sorts of situations that archaeologists want to explain, and notes that many of these are events that result from a complex set of factors, some of which are positively relevant to the occurrence of the event and others that are negatively relevant. In addition, many events that archaeologists want to explain are events that had a very low probability of occurrence. The author argues that formal philosophical models of explanation, such as the D‐N and the I‐S models, are ill suited to the task of archaeological explanation. What is needed, he says, is the development of a probabilistic account of causality that can supplement notions of statistical relevance in explanations of archaeological phenomena.
The Formulation of Why‐Questions
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractIs a response to a criticism, posed by an anthropologist (M. Cartmill), of the Statistical Relevance (S‐R) model of explanation. The author claims that the objection does not hold. Although he believes that the model must be supplemented by causal considerations, he maintains that the S‐R schema constitutes a correct basis on which acceptable explanations can be erected (see Ch. 22). In answering Cartmill's question, the author examines the high‐probability requirement of Hempel's Inductive Statistical (I‐S) model, and clarifies some fundamental features of the S‐R model. His response connects directly to van Fraassen's pragmatic theory, which is discussed from a different angle in Ch. 11.
Quasars, Causality, and Geometry
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractShows how the failure of astrophysicists to honor the distinction between causal processes and pseudoprocesses vitiates much of the discussion of quasars since their discovery in 1963. In this case, the theory of causality presented in this book bears directly on recent developments in an exciting branch of physical science. An appendix to the chapter presents numerous examples of the application of the fallacious argument connecting variation in brightness of an astronomical object with its compactness (the cΔt Size Criterion).