Hume’s Theorem

A common criticism of Hume’s famous anti-induction argument is that it is vitiated because it fails to foreclose the possibility of an authentically probabilistic justification of induction. I argue that this claim is false, and that on the contrary, the probability calculus itself, in the form of an elementary consequence that I call Hume’s Theorem, fully endorses Hume’s argument. Various objections, including the often-made claim that Hume is defeated by de Finetti’s exchangeability results, are considered and rejected.     

Finding your marbles in wavefunction collapse theories

Lewis (Br. J. Philos. Sci. 48 (1997) 313) has recently presented an argument claiming that, under the Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber (GRW) theory of quantum mechanics, arithmetic does not apply to ordinary macroscopic objects such as marbles (known as the Counting Anomaly). In this paper, I disentangle two different lines of Lewis's argument, one devoted to what I call the standard GRW interpretation and the other to the mass density interpretation (MDI). I present both strains of Lewis's argument, and move on to criticise Lewis's position, focusing on his argument with respect to MDI. I analyse the structure of his argument, and follow this with a novel refutation of Lewis's argument, drawing on the original presentation of MDI as developed by Ghirardi et al. (Found. Phys. 25 (1995) 5). I briefly consider the debate that ensued between Bassi and Ghirardi and Clifton and Monton and interpret it within the context of my analysis. I conclude that Lewis's Counting Anomaly fails to generate a genuine problem.     

‘Good Sense’ in context: A response to Kidd

In his response to my (2010), Ian Kidd claims that my argument against Stump’s interpretation of Duhem’s concept of ‘good sense’ is unsound because it ignores an important distinction within virtue epistemology. In light of the distinction between reliabilist and responsibilist virtue epistemology, Kidd argues that Duhem can be seen as supporting the latter, which he further illustrates with a discussion of Duhem’s argument against ‘perfect theory’. I argue that no substantive argument is offered to show that the distinction is relevant and can establish that Duhem’s ‘good sense’ can be understood within responsibilist virtue epistemology. I furthermore demonstrate that Kidd’s attempt to support his contention relies on a crucial misreading of Duhem’s general philosophy of science, and in doing so highlight the importance of understanding ‘good sense’ in its original context, that of theory choice.     

The literature and the science of ‘two cultures’ historiography

This paper discusses the historiography of the ‘two cultures’ controversy. C. P. Snow’s lament about the ‘two cultures’, literary and scientific, has inspired a wide range of comment—much of which begins by citing Snow and his thesis, before going on to discuss very different things. This paper focuses upon one strand of this commentary, the historical analysis of the controversy itself. A ‘historical’ analysis is defined here as one that resists the impulse to enter the argument on behalf of Snow or Leavis, to conceive of their argument in the terms that Snow defined, or to invoke their argument as a precursor to some contemporary issue. Instead, a historical interpretation registers distance between that day and this, takes the controversy itself as its object of study, and explores the tensions and associations that came to be packed into those now familiar terms. As the fiftieth anniversary of Snow’s Rede Lecture nears, this approach—rather than the repetition of clichés about the bridging of cultures—offers both analytical perspective on the controversy and interpretive possibilities for its examination.     

Experiment versus mechanical philosophy in the work of Robert Boyle: a reply to Anstey and Pyle

We can distinguish ‘mechanical’ in the strict sense of the mechanical philosophers from ‘mechanical’ in the common sense. My claim is that Boyle's experimental science owed nothing to, and offered no support for, the mechanical philosophy in the strict sense. The attempts by my critics to undermine my case involve their interpreting ‘mechanical’ in something like the common sense. I certainly accept that Boyle's experimental science was productively informed by mechanical analogies, where ‘mechanical’ is interpreted in a common sense. But this leaves my original claim untouched and, in the main, unchallenged.     

Realism bit by bit: Part II. Disjunctive partial reference

In this second paper, I continue my discussion of the problem of reference for scientific realism. First, I consider a final objection to Kitcher’s account of reference, which I generalise to other accounts of reference. Such accounts make attributions of reference by appeal to our pretheoretical intuitions about how true statements ought to be distibuted among the scientific utterances of the past. I argue that in the cases that merit discussion, this strategy fails because our intuitions are unstable. The interesting cases are importantly borderline—it really isn’t clear what we ought to say about how those terms referred. I conclude that in many relevant cases, our grounds for thinking that the theoretical terms of the past referred are matched by our grounds for thinking that they failed to refer, in such a way that deciding on either result is arbitrary and bad news for the realist. In response to this problem, in the second part of the paper I expand upon Field’s (1973) account of partial reference to sketch a new way of thinking about the theoretical terms of the past—that they partially referred and partially failed to refer.     

François Viète: between analysis and cryptanalysis

François Viète is considered the father both of modern algebra and of modern cryptanalysis. The paper outlines Viète’s major contributions in these two mathematical fields and argues that, despite an obvious parallel between them, there is an essential difference. Viète’s ‘new algebra’ relies on his reform of the classical method of analysis and synthesis, in particular on a new conception of analysis and the introduction of a new formalism. The procedures he suggests to decrypt coded messages are particular forms of analysis based on the use of formal methods. However, Viète’s algebraic analysis is not an analysis in the same sense as his cryptanalysis is. In Aristotelian terms, the first is a form of ‘’, while the second is a form of . While the first is a top-down argument from the point of view of the human subject, since it is an argument going from what is not actual to what is actual for such a subject, the second one is a bottom-up argument from this same point of view, since it starts from what is first for us and proceed towards what is first by nature.     

Two arguments for scientific realism unified

Inferences from scientific success to the approximate truth of successful theories remain central to the most influential arguments for scientific realism. Challenges to such inferences, however, based on radical discontinuities within the history of science, have motivated a distinctive style of revision to the original argument. Conceding the historical claim, selective realists argue that accompanying even the most revolutionary change is the retention of significant parts of replaced theories, and that a realist attitude towards the systematically retained constituents of our scientific theories can still be defended. Selective realists thereby hope to secure the argument from success against apparent historical counterexamples. Independently of that objective, historical considerations have inspired a further argument for selective realism, where evidence for the retention of parts of theories is itself offered as justification for adopting a realist attitude towards them. Given the nature of these arguments from success and from retention, a reasonable expectation is that they would complement and reinforce one another, but although several theses purport to provide such a synthesis the results are often unconvincing. In this paper I reconsider the realist’s favoured type of scientific success, novel success, offer a revised interpretation of the concept, and argue that a significant consequence of reconfiguring the realist’s argument from success accordingly is a greater potential for its unification with the argument from retention.     

The third law in Newton’s Waste book (or, the road less taken to the second law)

On the basis of evidence drawn from the Waste book, Westfall and Nicholas have argued that Newton arrived at his second law of motion by reflecting on the implications of the first law. I analyze another argument in the Waste book which reveals that Newton also arrived at the second law by another very different route. On this route, it is the consideration of the third law and the principle of conservation of motion—and not the first law—that prompts Newton to formulate the second law. The existence of these two routes is significant because each employs a distinct kind of reasoning about forces. Whereas the Nicholas-Westfall route via the principle of inertia bears the mark of Descartes’s influence, the alternative route proceeds from the action-reaction principle, which is widely regarded as an original Newtonian contribution to mechanics. In the course of exploring this alternate route to the second law, the origins and justification of the third law are examined.     

Response to one point in Gingras’s review of Gravity’s shadow

Yves Gingras says of my book Gravity’s shadow that it is too long, the style is poor, and in its 870 pages there is nothing new that is not to be regretted. Gingras’s purity of vision would be a cause for congratulation were it not for the appalling implications of one of his claims. For the sake of the future of social science—indeed for the sake of the future of civilisation—it is impossible to leave unchallenged the idea that respondents, who don’t like to see their use of data questioned, are to be commended when they withhold those data from public scrutiny.     

Uncomfortable bedfellows: Objective quantum Bayesianism and the von Neumann–Lüders projection postulate

In this paper I critically evaluate the justification of the von Neumann–Lüders projection postulate for state changes in projective measurement contexts from the objective quantum Bayesian perspective. I point out that the justification provided so far for the von Neumann–Lüders projection postulate is insufficient. I argue that the best way to correct this problem is to make an assumption, Benign Realism, which is contradictory to the objective quantum Bayesian interpretation of quantum states.     

A remark on Fuchs’ Bayesian interpretation of quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a theory whose foundations spark controversy to this day. Although many attempts to explain the underpinnings of the theory have been made, none has been unanimously accepted as satisfactory. Fuchs has recently claimed that the foundational issues can be resolved by interpreting quantum mechanics in the light of quantum information. The view proposed is that quantum mechanics should be interpreted along the lines of the subjective Bayesian approach to probability theory. The quantum state is not the physical state of a microscopic object. It is an epistemic state of an observer; it represents subjective degrees of belief about outcomes of measurements. The interpretation gives an elegant solution to the infamous measurement problem: measurement is nothing but Bayesian belief updating in a analogy to belief updating in a classical setting. In this paper, we analyze an argument that Fuchs gives in support of this latter claim. We suggest that the argument is not convincing since it rests on an ad hoc construction. We close with some remarks on the options left for Fuchs’ quantum Bayesian project.     

Energy Conservation in GTR

The topics of gravitational field energy and energy-momentum conservation in General Relativity theory have been unjustly neglected by philosophers. If the gravitational field in space free of ordinary matter, as represented by the metric g_ab itself, can be said to carry genuine energy and momentum, this is a powerful argument for adopting the substantivalist view of spacetime.This paper explores the standard textbook account of gravitational field energy and argues that (a) so-called stress-energy of the gravitational field is well-defined neither locally nor globally; and (b) there is no general principle of energy-momentum conservation to be found in General Relativity. I discuss the nature and justification of the zero-divergence law for ordinary stress-energy, and its possible connection with the failure of General Relativity to realise Mach's principle.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Newton's Argument for Proposition 1 of the</Emphasis> Principia

The first proposition of the Principia records two fundamental properties of an orbital motion: the Fixed Plane Property (that the orbit lies in a fixed plane) and the Area Property (that the radius sweeps out equal areas in equal times). Taking at the start the traditional view, that by an orbital motion Newton means a centripetal motion – this is a motion ``continually deflected from the tangent toward a fixed center' – we describe two serious flaws in the Principia's argument for Proposition 1, an argument based on a polygonal impulse approximation. First, the persuasiveness of the argument depends crucially on the validity of the Impulse Assumption: that every centripetal motion can be represented as a limit of polygonal impulse motions. Yet Newton tacitly takes the Impulse Assumption for granted. The resulting gap in the argument for Proposition 1 is serious, for only a nontrivial analysis, involving the careful estimation of accumulating local errors, verifies the Impulse Assumption. Second, Newton's polygonal approximation scheme has an inherent and ultimately fatal disability: it does not establish nor can it be adapted to establish the Fixed Plane Property. Taking then a different view of what Newton means by an orbital motion – namely that an orbital motion is by definition a limit of polygonal impulse motions – we show in this case that polygonal approximation can be used to establish both the fixed plane and area properties without too much trouble, but that Newton's own argument still has flaws. Moreover, a crucial question, haunted by error accumulation and planarity problems, now arises: How plentiful are these differently defined orbital motions? Returning to the traditional view, that Newton's orbital motions are by definition centripetal motions, we go on to give three proofs of the Area Property which Newton ``could have given' – two using polygonal approximation and a third using curvature – as well as a proof of the Fixed Plane Property which he ``almost could have given.' (Received August 14, 2002) Published online March 26, 2003 Communicated by G. Smith     

From natural history to political economy: the enlightened mission of Domenico Vandelli in late eighteenth-century Portugal

This article presents the main features of the work of Domenico Vandelli (1735–1816), an Italian-born man of science who lived a large part of his life in Portugal. Vandelli’s scientific interests as a naturalist paved the way to his activities as a reformer and adviser on economic and financial issues. The topics covered in his writings are similar to those discussed by Linnaeus, with whom Vandelli corresponded. They clearly reveal that the scientific preparation indispensable for a better knowledge of natural resources was also a fundamental condition for correctly addressing problems of efficiency in their economic allocation. The key argument put forward in this article is that the relationship between natural history and the agenda for economic reform and development deserves to be further analysed. It is indeed a central element in the emergence of political economy as an autonomous scientific discourse during the last decades of the eighteenth century.     

On value-laden science

Philosophical work on values in science is held back by widespread ambiguity about how values bear on scientific choices. Here, I disambiguate several ways in which a choice can be value-laden and show that this disambiguation has the potential to solve and dissolve philosophical problems about values in science. First, I characterize four ways in which values relate to choices: values can motivate, justify, cause, or be impacted by the choices we make. Next, I put my proposed taxonomy to work, using it to clarify one version of the argument from inductive risk. The claim that non-epistemic values must play a role in scientific choices that run inductive risk makes most sense as a claim about values being needed to justify such choices. The argument from inductive risk is not unique: many philosophical arguments about values in science can be more clearly understood and assessed by paying close attention to how values and choices are related.     

Modeling for fairness: A Rawlsian approach

In this paper we introduce the overlapping design consensus for the construction of models in design and the related value judgments. The overlapping design consensus is inspired by Rawls’ overlapping consensus. The overlapping design consensus is a well-informed, mutual agreement among all stakeholders based on fairness. Fairness is respected if all stakeholders’ interests are given due and equal attention. For reaching such fair agreement, we apply Rawls’ original position and reflective equilibrium to modeling. We argue that by striving for the original position, stakeholders expel invalid arguments, hierarchies, unwarranted beliefs, and bargaining effects from influencing the consensus. The reflective equilibrium requires that stakeholders’ beliefs cohere with the final agreement and its justification. Therefore, the overlapping design consensus is not only an agreement to decisions, as most other stakeholder approaches, it is also an agreement to their justification and that this justification is consistent with each stakeholders’ beliefs. For supporting fairness, we argue that fairness qualifies as a maxim in modeling. We furthermore distinguish values embedded in a model from values that are implied by its context of application. Finally, we conclude that for reaching an overlapping design consensus communication about properties of and values related to a model is required.     

The roots of the silver tree: Boyle,alchemy, and teleology

Though Robert Boyle called final causes one of the most important subjects for a natural philosopher to study, his own treatise on the subject, the Disquisition about Final Causes, has received comparatively little scholarly attention. In this paper, I explicate Boyle's complex argument against the use of teleological explanations for inanimate bodies, such as metals. The central object of this argument is a mysterious allusion to a silver plant. I claim that the silver plant is best understood as a reference to alchemical product: the Arbor Dianae, an offshoot of George Starkey's recipe for the Philosophers' Stone. Then, I show how the context of alchemy not only clarifies Boyle's argument but also places it within a wider dialectic about matter and teleology. I then contrast the parallel arguments of Boyle and John Ray on the question of whether metals have divine purposes and show that the difference is explained by Boyle's belief in the transmutation of metals.     

Predictivism and the periodic table

This is a comment on the paper by Barnes (2005) and the responses from Scerri (2005) and Worrall (2005), debating the thesis (‘predictivism’) that a fact successfully predicted by a theory is stronger evidence than a similar fact known before the prediction was made. Since Barnes and Scerri both use evidence presented in my paper on Mendeleev’s periodic law (Brush, 1996) to support their views, I reiterate my own position on predictivism. I do not argue for or against predictivism in the normative sense that philosophers of science employ, rather I describe how scientists themselves use facts and predictions to support their theories. I find wide variations, and no support for the assumption that scientists use a single ‘Scientific Method’ in deciding whether to accept a proposed new theory.     

Newton on action at a distance and the cause of gravity

In this discussion paper, I seek to challenge Hylarie Kochiras’ recent claims on Newton’s attitude towards action at a distance, which will be presented in Section 1. In doing so, I shall include the positions of Andrew Janiak and John Henry in my discussion and present my own tackle on the matter (Section 2). Additionally, I seek to strengthen Kochiras’ argument that Newton sought to explain the cause of gravity in terms of secondary causation (Section 3). I also provide some specification on what Kochiras calls ‘Newton’s substance counting problem’ (Section 4). In conclusion, I suggest a historical correction (Section 5).