Philosophical PapersPub Date : 2019-03-21DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199334872.003.0011
P. Humphreys
{"title":"Emergence","authors":"P. Humphreys","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199334872.003.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199334872.003.0011","url":null,"abstract":"Retrospective reflections are provided on the papers “How Properties Emerge,” “Emergence, Not Supervenience,” “Synchronic and Diachronic Emergence,” and “Computational and Conceptual Emergence” by Paul Humphreys. Remarks are made on the respective merits of diachronic and synchronic approaches to emergence and it is noted that fusion emergence is a special case of the author’s more recent transformational emergence. An argument is given that holism should be imposed as a requirement for emergence only on synchronic accounts, and a reevaluation of the six conditions for emergence given in the author’s “Emergence, Not Supervenience” paper is provided. Elaborations of why features are conceptually emergent or inferentially emergent are given and brief remarks on theoretical approaches to emergence are provided. A clarification of the author’s position that introducing levels of properties is in many cases a methodological convenience rather than a recognition of ontological reality is given.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44740572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Computational Science and Its Effects","authors":"P. Humphreys","doi":"10.1007/978-90-481-9051-5_9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9051-5_9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/978-90-481-9051-5_9","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42017000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Philosophical PapersPub Date : 2019-03-21DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199334872.003.0005
P. Humphreys
{"title":"Numerical Experimentation","authors":"P. Humphreys","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199334872.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199334872.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"I argue here that the computational models of numerical experimentation constitute a distinctively new kind of scientific method, intermediate in kind between empirical experimentation and analytic theory. A parallel is also drawn between extending our senses with scientific instruments and extending our mathematical powers by using computational instruments. A specific application of these methods to Ising Models using the Metropolis algorithm is described in detail. Finally, it is argued that what counts as observable, or what counts as computable, is doubly contingent and is not fixed, being dependent upon the current state of technology and the way the world is.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41486127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Philosophical PapersPub Date : 2019-03-21DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780199334872.003.0017
P. Humphreys
{"title":"Analytic versus Synthetic Understanding","authors":"P. Humphreys","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780199334872.003.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780199334872.003.0017","url":null,"abstract":"It is argued that understanding is an epistemically more important concept than explanation. Two kinds of understanding are discussed, that based on analysis of the explanandum and a kind that is based on a synthetic method. The distinction between primary and secondary understanding shows that who is asking the why question is of central importance. A problem for causation is introduced that revolves around the degree of isolation that is needed to identify a causal factor and to distinguish causes from their carriers. It is shown that the analytic and synthetic approach can deal with partial understanding, that there can be an increase in understanding without an explanation, and that laws are not necessary for understanding.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46814323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Philosophical PapersPub Date : 2019-03-21DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780199334872.003.0015
P. Humphreys
{"title":"Probability and Propensities","authors":"P. Humphreys","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780199334872.003.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780199334872.003.0015","url":null,"abstract":"Retrospective reflections are provided on the papers “Why Propensities Cannot Be Probabilities,” “Some Considerations on Conditional Chances,” and “Probability Theory and Its Models” by Paul Humphreys. A discussion of whether probability theory is a mathematical or an empirical theory is provided and the point made that mathematical theories are not revised but replaced when used as models of empirical phenomena. Probability theory qua formal theory has a mathematical interpretation but any empirical interpretation, contra Quine, is completely detachable. A replacement for Quine’s web metaphor is suggested. The author assesses Donald Gillies’ response to Humphreys’ Paradox, and reasons not to abandon the single case propensity interpretation of probabilities are given. Responses to the paradox by Mauricio Suárez, Isabelle Drouet, Leslie Ballentine, and David Miller are discussed, and an argument given that the temporal evolution approach is primary for absolute propensities.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46949518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Philosophical PapersPub Date : 2019-03-21DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780199334872.003.0006
P. Humphreys
{"title":"Templates, Opacity, and Simulations","authors":"P. Humphreys","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780199334872.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780199334872.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Retrospective reflections are provided on the papers “Computer Simulations,” “Computational Science and Its Effects,” “The Philosophical Novelty of Computer Simulation Methods,” and “Numerical Experimentation” by Paul Humphreys. Some major themes are that it is the broader category of computational science, including such methods as machine learning, that is of interest, rather than just the narrower field of computer simulations; that numerical experiments and simulations are only analogous in a very weak sense to laboratory experiments; that computational science is a genuine emplacement revolution; and that syntax is of primary importance in computational modeling. Remarks are made on the logical properties of simulations, on the appropriate definition of a simulation, and on the need to take applied mathematics seriously as an autonomous field of study in the philosophy of mathematics. An argument is given for the conclusion that computational transformations preserve the causal origins of data but not their referential content.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47369349","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Self-Defense, Forfeiture, and Necessity","authors":"D. Alm","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2018.1500145","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2018.1500145","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The thesis of this paper is that it is possible to explain why a culpable aggressor forfeits his right not to suffer the harm necessary to prevent his aggression if a killer forfeits his right to life. I argue that this strategy accounts also for the necessity restriction on self-defense. I respond to several objections, including the worry that it makes no sense to attempt a derivation of the relatively uncontroversial (aggressor’s forfeiture) from the highly controversial (killer’s forfeiture).","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":"48 1","pages":"335 - 358"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/05568641.2018.1500145","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42904917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Localism vs. Individualism for the Scientific Realism Debate","authors":"Seungbae Park","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2018.1500144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2018.1500144","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Localism is the view that the unit of evaluation in the scientific realism debate is a single scientific discipline, sub-discipline, or claim, whereas individualism is the view that the unit of evaluation is a single scientific theory. Localism is compatible, while individualism is not, with a local pessimistic induction and a local selective induction. Asay presents several arguments to support localism and undercut globalism, according to which the unit of evaluation is the set of all scientific disciplines. I argue that some of his arguments clash with localism as well as with globalism and support individualism, and that individualism goes hand in hand, while localism does not, with the basic rule of how to evaluate an argument.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":"48 1","pages":"359 - 377"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/05568641.2018.1500144","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45274733","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Characterizing the Imaginative Attitude","authors":"Nick Wiltsher","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2018.1531725","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2018.1531725","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Three thoughts strongly influence recent work on sensory imagination, often without explicit articulation. The image thought says that all mental states involving a mental image are imaginative. The attitude thought says that, if there is a distinctive imaginative attitude, it is a single, monolithic attitude. The function thought says that the functions of sensory imagination are identical or akin to functions of other mental states such as judgment or belief. Taken together, these thoughts create a theoretical context within which eliminativism appears attractive. Eliminativism is the idea that we need not refer to a distinctive attitude in order to characterize sensory imagination: the attitudes involved in other states provide all the resources we need. Peter Langland-Hassan’s account of sensory imagination provides an example of such eliminativism. Via close examination of this account, I make manifest the three thoughts and their collective tendency to support eliminativism. I argue that all three are dubious, and that we should reject eliminativism; we need a distinctive imaginative attitude if we are to adequately explicate sensory imagination.","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":"48 1","pages":"437 - 469"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/05568641.2018.1531725","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42358363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Revisiting Eze on Ubuntu: Interrogating the Priority of the Political Over the Philosophical","authors":"B. Matolino","doi":"10.1080/05568641.2018.1544033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2018.1544033","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze’s insightful critique of ubuntu, first expressed in his paper ‘Between History and the Gods: Reason, Morality, and Politics in Today’s Africa’ and in his book On Reason: Rationality in a World of Cultural Conflict and Racism (Eze 2008a, 2008b) shows the theoretical shortcomings of ubuntu as a philosophical tool that may inform how philosophy reflects on the political. Eze argues that ubuntu as an extraordinary moral framework, may be ill-suited to capture ordinary experiences and subsequently pass appropriate judgement. Further, Eze asserts that to protect philosophy from unphilosophical encroachments, such as politics, we need to maintain a strict distinction between politics and the moral and philosophy. Such a distinction, in his view, would enable philosophy to turn itself into good philosophy that is free of ideological influences and commitments. In order for philosophy to do its philosophical tasks well, it has to stand up for and defend a specific form of reason that Eze identifies as ordinary reason. What I seek to do is to reaffirm Eze’s arguments, against ubuntu, in the three main sections that this paper is divided into. The first section will","PeriodicalId":46780,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Papers","volume":"48 1","pages":"471 - 488"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/05568641.2018.1544033","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47669103","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}