定律的形而上学谱系——从休谟式随附谈起

传统科学哲学中规则系统式定律观与普遍必然式定律观,分别代表了定律形而上学观点的最弱与最强的两端,而休谟式随附可以被看作处于这两端之间。这三者构成的定律形而上学谱系,都首先需要承诺对象及其属性的本体论优先性。可是,这时这一谱系的内部区间划分其实并不清楚。于是,对这三种观点尤其是休谟式随附与普遍必然式定律观的哲学分析就是必要的,并且有可能在结合对实际的科学定律案例的分析后获得一种超出了已有形而上学观念的定律观。     

逻辑悖论成因研究——以科学理论悖论为例

国内外学界对逻辑悖论的成因有主观虚构论、认知错误论、语言缺陷论、客观存在论等诸多指认。逻辑悖论是思维的产物,是从特定认知共同体公认正确的背景知识中合乎逻辑地推导出来的。如果我们承认经典逻辑规律具有普适性,就应该从蕴涵逻辑悖论的"背景知识"中探求其生成的因由。     

Absence of Contingency in the Newtonian Universe

I argue that, contrary to thestandard view, the Newtonian universe containsno contingency. I do this by arguing (i) thatno contingency is introduced into the Newtonianuniverse by the initial conditions of physicalsystems in the universe, and (ii) that theclaim that the Newtonian universe as a wholehas contingent properties leads to incoherence.This result suggests that Newtonian physics iseither inconsistent or incomplete, since thelaws of Newtonian physics are too weak todetermine all the properties of the Newtonianuniverse uniquely.     

Remodeling the Past

In some of the papers in which she develops and defends the mental modelview of thought experiments in physics, Nersessian expresses the belief that her account has implications for thought experiments in other domains as well. In this paper, I argue, firstly, that counterfactual reasoning has a legitimate place in historical inquiry, and secondly, that the mental model view can account for such "alternative histories". I proceed as follows. Firstly, I review the main accounts of thought experiments in physics and point at some explanatory advantages of the mental model view. Subsequently, I argue that historians cannot dispense with counterfactual reasoning altogether and qualify a number of principled objections against the explicit use of alternative histories for theoretical purposes. Finally, I show that the mental model view can account for such thought experiments in history.     

A Physical Approach to the Construction of Cognition and to Cognitive Evolution

It is shown that the method of operationaldefinition of theoretical terms applied inphysics may well support constructivist ideasin cognitive sciences when extended toobservational terms. This leads to unexpectedresults for the notion of reality, inductionand for the problem why mathematics is sosuccessful in physics.A theory of cognitive operators is proposedwhich are implemented somewhere in our brainand which transform certain states of oursensory apparatus into what we call perceptionsin the same sense as measurement devicestransform the interaction with the object intomeasurement results. Then, perceivedregularities, as well as the laws of nature wewould derive from them can be seen asinvariants of the cognitive operators concernedand are by this human specific constructsrather than ontologically independent elements.(e.g., the law of energy conservation can bederived from the homogeneity of time and bythis depends on our mental time metricgenerator). So, reality in so far it isrepresented by the laws of nature has no longeran independent ontological status. This isopposed to Campbell's `natural selectionepistemology'. From this it is shown that thereholds an incompleteness theorem for physicallaws similar to Gödels incompletenesstheorem for mathematical axioms, i.e., there isno definitive or object `theory of everything'.This constructivist approaches to cognitionwill allow a coherent and consistent model ofboth cognitive and organic evolution. Whereasthe classical view sees the two evolutionrather dichotomously (for ex.: most scientistssee cognitive evolution converging towards adefinitive world picture, whereas organicevolution obviously has no specific focus (the`pride of creation').     

The Third Dogma Revisited

This paper is an attempt to further our understanding of mechanisms conceived of as ontologically separable from laws. What opportunities are there for a mechanistic perspective to be independent of, or even more fundamental than, a law perspective? Advocates of the mechanistic view often play with the possibility of internal and external reliability, or with the paralleling possibilities of enforcing, counteracting, redirecting, etc., the mechanisms’ power to produce To further this discussion I adopt a trope ontology. It is independent of the notion of law, and can easily be adapted to account for such characteristics of mechanisms. The idea of tropes as mechanisms is worked out in some detail. According to the resulting picture, there is still an opportunity to link mechanisms and laws. But while the predominant law view conceives of mechanistic approaches as special kinds of law accounts, this study indicates that the converse may be true. Law accounts are special cases of mechanistic accounts, and they work only in those worlds where the mechanisms are of the right kind     

Tropes As Mechanisms

This paper is an attempt to further our understanding of mechanisms conceived of as ontologically separable from laws. What opportunities are there for a mechanistic perspective to be independent of, or even more fundamental than, a law perspective? Advocates of the mechanistic view often play with the possibility of internal and external reliability, or with the paralleling possibilities of enforcing, counteracting, redirecting, etc., the mechanisms’ power to produce To further this discussion I adopt a trope ontology. It is independent of the notion of law, and can easily be adapted to account for such characteristics of mechanisms. The idea of tropes as mechanisms is worked out in some detail. According to the resulting picture, there is still an opportunity to link mechanisms and laws. But while the predominant law view conceives of mechanistic approaches as special kinds of law accounts, this study indicates that the converse may be true. Law accounts are special cases of mechanistic accounts, and they work only in those worlds where the mechanisms are of the right kind     

有没有“其它情况均同”定律?

本文论证指出:(1)CP可能包括无限多的条件,因此即使是用科学语言,仍然是不可消去的;(2)我们可以检验CP定律的逆否命题,从而检验CP定律本身;(3)Earman把CP陈述看成展开式微分方程而非定律,与他的MRL定律观不一致,展开式微分方程也应是定律。笔者还提出思想实验表明,Earman对真值条件和应用有效性条件的区分,及其依附性论旨,可能得出自相矛盾的结论。     

The Constructive Realist Account of Science and Its Application to Ilya Prigogine’s Conception of Laws of Nature

Sciences are often regarded as providing the best, or, ideally, exact, knowledge of the world, especially in providing laws of nature. Ilya Prigogine, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his theory of non-equilibrium chemical processes—this being also an important attempt to bridge the gap between exact and non-exact sciences [mentioned in the Presentation Speech by Professor Stig Claesson (nobelprize.org, The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1977)]—has had this ideal in mind when trying to formulate a new kind of science. Philosophers of science distinguish theory and reality, examining relations between these two. Nancy Cartwright’s distinction of fundamental and phenomenological laws, Rein Vihalemm’s conception of the peculiarity of the exact sciences, and Ronald Giere’s account of models in science and science as a set of models are deployed in this article to criticise the common view of science and analyse Ilya Prigogine’s view in particular. We will conclude that on a more abstract, philosophical level, Prigogine’s understanding of science doesn’t differ from the common understanding.

高阶信念理论如何解决关于意识的难问题

如何解释现象意识是意识的难问题。高阶信念理论试图为现象意识提供还原性的说明,其中最有代表性的是罗森赛尔的实在主义高阶信念理论和卡拉特斯的倾向主义理论。本文批判性地分析了这两种理论对现象意识的说明,指出其困难,最后提供了原创性的改进版本。     

Parmenides Reloaded

I argue for a four dimensional, non-dynamical view of space-time, where becoming is not an intrinsic property of reality. This view has many features in common with the Parmenidean conception of the universe. I discuss some recent objections to this position and I offer a comparison of the Parmenidean space-time with an interpretation of Heraclitus’ thought that presents no major antagonism.     

A Theory of Scientific Model Construction: <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Conceptual Process of Abstraction and Concretisation</Emphasis>

The process of abstraction and concretisation is a label used for an explicative theory of scientific model-construction. In scientific theorising this process enters at various levels. We could identify two principal levels of abstraction that are useful to our understanding of theory-application. The first level is that of selecting a small number of variables and parameters abstracted from the universe of discourse and used to characterise the general laws of a theory. In classical mechanics, for example, we select position and momentum and establish a relation amongst the two variables, which we call Newton’s 2nd law. The specification of the unspecified elements of scientific laws, e.g. the force function in Newton’s 2nd law, is what would establish the link between the assertions of the theory and physical systems. In order to unravel how and with what conceptual resources scientific models are constructed, how they function and how they relate to theory, we need a view of theory-application that can accommodate our constructions of representation models. For this we need to expand our understanding of the process of abstraction to also explicate the process of specifying force functions etc. This is the second principal level at which abstraction enters in our theorising and in which I focus. In this paper, I attempt to elaborate a general analysis of the process of abstraction and concretisation involved in scientific- model construction, and argue why it provides an explication of the construction of models of the nuclear structure.     

Technology and the Myth of ‘Natural Man’

The main suggestions and objections raised by Don Ihde and Charles Lenay to my ‘Technology and the body: the (im)possibilities of re-embodiment’ are summarized and discussed. On the one hand, I agree that we should pay more attention to whole body experience and to further resisting Cartesian assumptions in the field of cognitive neuroscience and philosophy of cognition. On the other hand, I explain that my account in no way presupposes the myth of ‘natural man’ or of a natural, delineated body from before the fall into technology.     

The Self-Organization of Time and Causality: Steps Towards Understanding the Ultimate Origin

Possibly the most fundamental scientific problem is the origin of time and causality. The inherent difficulty is that all scientific theories of origins and evolution consider the existence of time and causality as given. We tackle this problem by starting from the concept of self-organization, which is seen as the spontaneous emergence of order out of primordial chaos. Self-organization can be explained by the selective retention of invariant or consistent variations, implying a breaking of the initial symmetry exhibited by randomness. In the case of time, we start from a random graph connecting primitive “events”. Selection on the basis of consistency eliminates cyclic parts of the graph, so that transitive closure can transform it into a partial order relation of precedence. Causality is assumed to be carried by causal “agents” which undergo a more traditional variation and selection, giving rise to causal laws that are partly contingent, partly necessary.     

论分析命题和综合命题--从蒯因到克里普克

蒯因打破了传统的分析命题和综合命题的区分；克里普克提出了“先验偶然命题”和“后验必然命题”的存在，打破了原来以为先验命题一定是必然的，后验命题一定是偶然的这种传统的观点，这个现点是对蒯固观点的发展。我们认为，蒯因的观点有一定合理性，但他忽视了逻辑真理作为分析命题与综合命题的区分；克里普克对先验偶然命题的和后验必然命题的论证与他的理论体系是融贯一致的，但他对严格指示词的证明是不充分的。当然，蒯因和克里普克现点的提出是分析哲学发展中的重要的里程碑，极天地推动了分析哲学在当代的发展。     

试析社会科学中的规律观

本文试图为社会科学中存在规律的可能性作一辩护，通过分析反驳社会科学中存在规律的理由，得出结论：按当代科学哲学的新规律观，社会科学中存在的规律本质上与自然科学规律没有不同，并且与社会科学中的规则无法严格区分，因此我建议将规律与规则看作处在同一连续统中，规则处在规律保护带的边缘，社会科学的目标是逐渐地尽可能地改善和精确化那些不同范围内的规则，使之成为在该范围内更具解释力的规律。     

无限主义:当代知识论的新视点

克莱因教授最近提出的无限主义引起了广泛的关注。无限主义是这样一种辩护理论，它主张辩护的理由的结构是无限且不重复的，克莱因认为这是知识论的无穷后退问题所蕴含的要求，因而也是解决这一问题的正确途径。克莱因通过精细的分析告诉我们，无限主义能对最有认知价值的推理知识给出很好的说明，能经受住各种反对意见，是一种有前途的理论。     

Model-Based and Manipulative Abduction in Science

What I call theoretical abduction (sentential and model-based)certainly illustrates much of what is important in abductive reasoning, especially the objective of selecting and creating a set of hypotheses that are able to dispense good (preferred) explanations of data, but fails to account for many cases of explanation occurring in science or in everyday reasoning when the exploitation of the environment is crucial. The concept of manipulative abduction is devoted to capture the role of action in many interesting situations: action provides otherwise unavailable information that enables the agent to solve problems by starting and performing a suitable abductive process of generation or selection of hypotheses. Many external things, usually inert from the epistemological point of view, can be transformed into what I callepistemic mediators, which are illustrated in the last part of the paper, together with an analysis of the related notions of ``perceptual and inceptual rehearsal' and of ``external representation'.