European Journal for Philosophy of Science最新文献

Performative paternalism

IF 1.5 1区哲学

European Journal for Philosophy of Science Pub Date : 2025-04-14 DOI: 10.1007/s13194-025-00651-7

Jakob Ortmann

引用次数: 0

Kant’s essentialism and mechanism and their relevance for present-day philosophy of psychiatry

IF 1.5 1区哲学

European Journal for Philosophy of Science Pub Date : 2025-04-12 DOI: 10.1007/s13194-025-00654-4

Hein van den Berg

{"title":"Kant’s essentialism and mechanism and their relevance for present-day philosophy of psychiatry","authors":"Hein van den Berg","doi":"10.1007/s13194-025-00654-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-025-00654-4","url":null,"abstract":"This paper aims to evaluate the relevance of Kant’s much discussed essentialism and mechanism for present-day philosophy of psychiatry. Kendler et al. (Psychological Medicine 41(6):1143–1150, 2011) have argued that essentialism is inadequate for conceptualizing psychiatric disorders. In this paper, I develop this argument in detail by highlighting a variety of essentialism that differs from the one rejected by Kendler et al. I show that Kant’s essentialism is not directly affected by the argument of Kendler et al. (Psychological Medicine 41(6):1143–1150, 2011), and that Kendler et al.’s (Psychological Medicine 41(6):1143–1150, 2011) argument also does not affect other essentialist positions in psychiatry. Hence, the rejection of essentialism in psychiatry needs more arguments than the one supplied by Kendler et al. Nevertheless, the study of current psychiatry also provides reasons to reject Kant’s essentialism and his transcendental project. I argue that Kant’s theory of mechanical explanation is more relevant for analyzing present-day philosophy of psychiatry, insofar as (a) modern psychiatric research into the causes of psychiatric disorders fits the mechanist paradigm, (b) Kant’s theory of mechanical explanation is importantly similar to modern theories of mechanical explanation applicable to psychiatry, such as those of Bechtel and associates, and (c) Kant’s stance that mechanism constitutes a regulative ideal points to useful arguments for the pursuit of mechanical explanations in psychiatry.","PeriodicalId":48832,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for Philosophy of Science","volume":"66 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143823104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Probabilistic empiricism

IF 1.5 1区哲学

European Journal for Philosophy of Science Pub Date : 2025-04-12 DOI: 10.1007/s13194-025-00653-5

Quentin Ruyant, Mauricio Suárez

引用次数: 0

Grounded empiricism

IF 1.5 1区哲学

European Journal for Philosophy of Science Pub Date : 2025-04-07 DOI: 10.1007/s13194-025-00644-6

Ioannis Votsis

{"title":"Grounded empiricism","authors":"Ioannis Votsis","doi":"10.1007/s13194-025-00644-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-025-00644-6","url":null,"abstract":"Empiricism has a long and venerable history. Aristotle, the Epicureans, Sextus Empiricus, Bacon, Locke, Hume, Mill, Mach and the Logical Empiricists, among others, represent a long line of historically influential empiricists who, one way or another, placed an emphasis on knowledge gained through the senses. In recent times the most highly articulated and influential edition of empiricism is undoubtedly Bas van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism. Science, according to this view, aims at empirically adequate theories, i.e. theories that save all and only the observable phenomena. Roughly put, something is observable in van Fraassen’s view if members of the human epistemic community can detect it with their unaided senses. Critics have contested this notion, citing, among other reasons, that much of what counts as knowledge for scientists, especially in the natural sciences, concerns things that are detectable only with instruments, i.e. things that are unobservable and hence unknowable by van Fraassen’s lights. The current paper seeks to overcome this objection by putting forth and defending a liberalised conception of observability and an associated, and accordingly liberalised, conception of empiricism. ‘Grounded observability’ and ‘grounded empiricism’, as we call them, unchain themselves from the burdens of traditional conceptions of experience, while at the same time tethering themselves to the source of epistemic credibility in the senses, and, hence to the true spirit of empiricism.","PeriodicalId":48832,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for Philosophy of Science","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143790125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The place of explanation in scientific inquiry: Inference to the best explanation vs inference to the only explanation 解释在科学探索中的地位：推论最佳解释与推论唯一解释

IF 1.5 1区哲学

European Journal for Philosophy of Science Pub Date : 2025-04-02 DOI: 10.1007/s13194-025-00649-1

James Woodward

{"title":"The place of explanation in scientific inquiry: Inference to the best explanation vs inference to the only explanation","authors":"James Woodward","doi":"10.1007/s13194-025-00649-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-025-00649-1","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the status of inference to the best explanation (IBE), in contrast to inference to the only explanation (IOE) against the background of Woodward's what-if-things- had-been-different (w) account of explanation. It argues that IBE is not a defensible form of inference. By contrast IOE is defensible and objections to its use (e.g., on the basis of claims about underdetermination) are exaggerated. Although some accounts of explanation in conjunction support IBE, the w-account does not. It is also argued that we should think of explanation as an independent goal of scientific investigation that is valuable in its own right and not because it is a means to discovering truths via IBE. The correct picture of the connection between explanation and truth is simply that successful explanation requires a true or effectively correct explanans. However, we cannot establish that an explanans has this feature by appealing to its potential explanatory power– that it would if true explain well. Instead, evidence that is independent of potential explanatory power is required. This is what IOE provides.","PeriodicalId":48832,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for Philosophy of Science","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143757998","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Epistemic niche construction and non-epistemic values: the case of 19th century craniology

IF 1.5 1区哲学

European Journal for Philosophy of Science Pub Date : 2025-04-01 DOI: 10.1007/s13194-025-00648-2

Matteo De Benedetto, Michele Luchetti

引用次数: 0

Elucidating and embedding: two functions of how-possibly explanations

IF 1.5 1区哲学

European Journal for Philosophy of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-14 DOI: 10.1007/s13194-025-00646-4

Franziska Reinhard

引用次数: 0

Intervention and experiment 干预和实验

IF 1.5 1区哲学

European Journal for Philosophy of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-13 DOI: 10.1007/s13194-025-00647-3

Irina Mikhalevich

引用次数: 0

Explanatory essentialism and cryptic species

IF 1.5 1区哲学

European Journal for Philosophy of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-12 DOI: 10.1007/s13194-025-00643-7

Milenko Lasnibat

{"title":"Explanatory essentialism and cryptic species","authors":"Milenko Lasnibat","doi":"10.1007/s13194-025-00643-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-025-00643-7","url":null,"abstract":"Explanatory Essentialism (EE) is the view that a property is the essence of a kind because it causally explains the many properties that instances of the kind exhibit. This paper examines an application of EE to biological species, which I call Biological Explanatory Essentialism (BEE). BEE states that a particular biological origin is the essence of a species on the grounds that it causes certain organisms to display the group of properties the species is associated with. Evaluating BEE is important, as it offers a novel argument for Biological Essentialism, the contentious claim that biological species have essences. The paper critically assesses the empirical foundations of BEE, focusing on the presupposition that a single biological origin causes the many properties associated with the species in question. By discussing a case of five-toed jerboas within the Scarturus elater species complex, I challenge that presupposition, thereby showing that cryptic species present a serious obstacle to BEE. I conclude that BEE fails to support Biological Essentialism, and suggest that essentialist philosophers reconsider the relevance of causal-explanatory factors in accounting for the purported essences of biological species. These philosophers may need to explore alternatives beyond such factors, one of which I briefly outline.","PeriodicalId":48832,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for Philosophy of Science","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143599950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Absolute representations and modern physics 绝对表征与现代物理学

IF 1.5 1区哲学

European Journal for Philosophy of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-11 DOI: 10.1007/s13194-025-00645-5

Caspar Jacobs, James Read

{"title":"Absolute representations and modern physics","authors":"Caspar Jacobs, James Read","doi":"10.1007/s13194-025-00645-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-025-00645-5","url":null,"abstract":"Famously, Adrian Moore has argued that an absolute representation of reality is possible: that it is possible to represent reality from no particular point of view. Moreover, Moore believes that such absolute representations are a desideratum of physics. Recently, however, debates in the philosophy of physics have arisen regarding the apparent impossibility of an absolute representation of certain aspects of nature in light of our current best theories of physics. Throughout this article, we take gravitational energy as a particular case study of an aspect of nature that seemingly does not admit of an absolute representation. There is, therefore, a prima facie tension between Moore’s a priori case on the one hand, and the state-of-play in modern physics on the other. This article overcomes this tension by demonstrating how, when formulated in the correct way, modern physics admits of an absolute representation of gravitational energy after all. In so doing, the article offers a detailed case study of Moore’s argument for absolute representation, clarifying its structure and bringing it into contact with the distinction drawn by philosophers of physics between coordinate-freedom and coordinate-independence, as well as the philosophy of spacetime physics.","PeriodicalId":48832,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for Philosophy of Science","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143599953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0