abstracts (2009)

2009 November 6 at 5:30 pm
Health Need
Jason Byron

Norman Daniels has developed an influential account of the just distribution of health care services and of what constitutes health needs. On that account, health needs are just those things we need to maintain, restore, or provide functional equivalents to (where possible) health. Health is the absence of pathology, which Daniels defines as any deviation from the functional organization of a typical member of the species or relevant species subgroup. Harmful pathologies are just those deviations in normal species functioning that restrict affected persons from a fair share of the normal range of opportunity open to them. One’s fair share of the normal range are the life plans one may reasonably choose, given one’s talents and skills (and correcting for unjust social arrangements that disadvantage some from developing their skills and talents). When one’s fair share of the normal range is restricted by harmful pathology, justice demands that society make certain efforts to restore it via access to health care services. This is because failing to restore that share of the normal range deprives individuals of their capacity to function as free and equal citizens—that is, citizens able to change their conception of the good over time and able to take advantage of their basic rights and liberties. In this way, meeting health needs is a fundamental requirement of justice.

In this talk, I criticize Daniels's account on two grounds. First, I argue that pathologies are not in fact objectively ascribable in the sense Daniels claims. Second, I argue that objective ascribability in Daniels’s sense is not required for pathology to be objectively important. (I will not directly consider whether welfarist accounts of health, according to which health needs arise solely from preferences, could satisfactorily answer the question of equity. It will suffice for my purposes that Daniels’s non-welfarist account provides grounds on which reasoned consensus is plausible.)

2009 October 30 at 5:00 pm

Julia Bursten

I am applying for a grant to do work in philosophy of chemistry, focusing on comparing molecular orbital, modern valence, and density functional models of molecular bonding. The aim of the comparison is to see what ontological and pedagogical prejudices are contained in each model, and to argue which of these prejudices should be elevated and which suppressed in the field. In other words, first I want to articulate what each model reveals about the nature of the chemical bond itself and about how bonding is discussed in chemical teaching and research. Then I want to make arguments for preferring aspects of some models over others in these aims. I plan to ground the ontological argument in the contemporary realism-antireaism literature and the pedagogical argument in the ontological argument, coupled with a pragmatic view of the aims of explanation in the sciences. This research is in an early stage, and so I apologize for not being more specific in its aims. As far as today, I think I'll probably tell the element 118 fraud story and wrap it up into worries about approximation techniques and generally try to articulate what the hell I want to do with my life.

2009 October 23 at 5:00 pm
Time Reversal and the Symmetry of Nothing
Bryan Roberts

I show how the antiunitarity of the time reversal operator in quantum mechanics can be determined from symmetry considerations. In particular, I show that antinuitarity follows if, in the absence of forces and interactions, the covariance group of the laws of physics is the same as the symmetry group of empty spacetime. The usual time-reversal properties of position and momentum follow. And on this approach, it follows that ordinary quantum mechanics is indeed time reversal invariant, contrary to recent remarks by David Albert.

2009 October 16 at 5:00 pm
Nature's New Clothes: on the Existence of Laws
Balazs Gyenis

My aim is to discuss the feasibility of Humeian accounts of laws of nature, according to which laws merely supervene on more fundamental non-nomic facts. I'm going to focus on the following question (which, as I shall argue, these accounts need to successfully address): is it true that it is possible to obtain a law-based description of the fundamental non-nomic facts whatever the distribution of these facts might turn out to be? I'm going to present several results - both positive and negative - which address the various natural ways how this question can be precisely formulated, complete with a discussion of the notion of a "law-based description". Some of these results might strike as surprising. In the end I'm going to argue that, from a Humeian perspective, some of the findings are directly relevant to the question whether mathematical models featuring initial value indeterminism, such as Norton's Dome, are representing physically possible systems. I'm going to develop some formalism but the talk is not math-heavy and the intended philosophical points are accessible even on the basis of a crude understanding of the technical details.

2009 October 9 at 5:00 pm
Producing Robust Data with a Single Technique
Greg Gandenberger

Scientists use techniques that produce “raw data” that requires substantial interpretation. In many cases, it is impossible to discover or test by direct observation methods of interpreting that raw data. In those cases, it is natural to assume that the justification for a particular method of interpretation must come from a theory of the process that produces the raw data. Contrary to this view, scientists have many strategies for validating a method of raw-data interpretation. Thus, it is possible to produce a robust body of data with a single technique. I illustrate and support these claims with a case study of the introduction of the cathode-ray oscillograph into electrophysiology.

2009 September 18 at 5:30 pm
A Poor Relation: A Critical Look at Relational Quantum Mechanics
Tom Pashby

In this paper I argue i) the strongly relational position that Rovelli adopts in Relational Quantum Mechanics (1996) is justified neither by the analogy special relativity, nor by the central observation about quantum mechanics on which it is based ii) that Rovelli fails to correctly apply the technical concept of Shannon information and so should be understood in terms of the epistemic concept, which is generally understood to be factive. This leads to a dilemma articulated by Chris Timpson concerning what the information contained in the wavefunction concerns, and I argue that the answer offered by Rovelli is essentially instrumentalist. I conclude with some remarks about possible modifications of the interpretation to accommodate these complaints.

2009 April 17 at 5:00 pm
Structural Group Realism
Bryan Roberts

There is a precise form of structural realism that identifies 'structure' in quantum theory with symmetry groups. However, working out the details actually illuminates a major problem for structural realism. This paper argues that, once a precise characterization of structure is given, the 'metaphysical hierarchy' on which structural realism rests is difficult to make sense of, if not completely incoherent.

2009 March 20 at 5:30 pm
The Justification of the Probability Measure (in Statistical Mechanics)
Elay Shech

This talk has to do with the justification of the probability measure chosen to describe the possible microstates, or unobservable aspects, of a system. The question I’m concerned with is: What could justify, i.e. what grounds might one have for a belief that some probability distribution correctly describes the microstate of a system?

I’ll begin with taking up a specific argument, by Davey 2008, which claims that beliefs about the correct probability measure describing the microstate of a system are not justified. More specifically, Kevin Davey claims that the justification of the second law of thermodynamics as it is conveyed by the ‘standard story’ of statistical mechanics, roughly speaking that low entropy microstates tend to evolve to high entropy microstates, is “unhelpful at best and wrong at worst.” I will show that Davey’s argument for rejecting the standard story commits him to a form of inductive skepticism that is more radical than the position he claims to be stating (at best) and that Davey places unreasonable demands on the notion justification in the physical sciences (at worst).

If there is time left I hope to discuss various directions for further research concerning a positive claim - the grounds for justifying the probability measure chosen to describe the microstate of a system. This talk will not be technical.

2009 March 6 at 4:30 pm
Newton's Empiricism and the Changing Metaphysics of Void Space
Zvi Biener

In definitions written for possible inclusion in the third edition of Book III of the Principia, Newton defined both “body” and “vacuum” in terms of resistance: body is that which gives resistance, vacuum is the place in which body can move without resistance. Curiously, Newton was vehement that these definitions were not the only possible definitions of body and vacuum, but merely the ones with which he was concerned in the Principia. About “other sorts of bodies and another sort of void”, he wrote, “let authors in other sciences dispute”. This admission is stunning. Newton had struggled throughout his career to precisely define ‘body’ and ‘void’. But while he had often relativized his concept of body to the project of the Principia—other physical theories may hypothesize other sorts of bodies—until these draft definitions he had never done so for the concept of void. In fact, in the earlier anti-Cartesian De Gravitatione, he even portrayed his account of void space as the only metaphysically possible one!

I argue that these definitions—as well as a small change in the scholium on space and time—betray a subtle change in Newton’s metaphysics of void space. In particular, I argue that Newton began to question a claim he had initially articulated in De Gravitatione ; namely, that void space was lacking all agency and thus categorically distinct from substance. This change was caused by a co-relative change in the epistemic status of void space vis-a-vis Newtonian mechanics.

These claims are supported by two threads of argumentation. First, I show that Newton’s conception of space in both De Gravitatione and the scholium on space and time was supported by an argument concerning the geometrical structure of space as well as an argument concerning space’s lack of agency. Although the two arguments are intertwined, they are methodologically independent. While the first concerns the conceptual necessity of absolute space’s geometry for physical theory, the second concerns empirical evidence regarding the vacuity of the celestial spaces. Because of this methodological independence, when in the 1710s Newton came to doubt the validity of his arguments concerning the vacuity of space (expressed in revisions to Prop. 6 of Book III of the Principia), he could question whether space was necessarily inert without throwing into doubt space’s geometrical structure. Space's lack of agency, however, was also used in De Gravitatione to support the ontological necessity of space. It was on the basis of this inertness and the claim that substance is “an entity that can act” that Newton argued for space’s being “neither substance nor accident” and so a necessary, divine emanation. Thus, when he began to doubt the vacuity of the celestial spaces, he was also committed to rethinking his position regarding space as an emanative effect.

The second thread of argumentation concerns Newton’s preferred method of reasoning in natural philosophy. Newton often claimed that his method is that “of the geometers”. On this method, terms are used only in accordance with their precise definitions. Their vulgar use, if it exists, is ignored . However, in De Gravitatione and the scholium Newton avoided using this method in his treatment of space. In fact, in the first two edition of the Principia he explicitly held that since “time, space, place, and motion” are “very well known to all”, he shall not define them. Rather, in order to treat space Newton followed a common dialectical strategy: he took a familiar (if not precise) concept and showed through a series of arguments what could and could not be properly said of it. For Newton, the concept of space was thus the same as that of his predecessors, but cleansed of their errors and misconceptions. Yet Newton’s treatment of space changed in the 1710s. During this period, because of his increasing doubts regarding the nature of void space, Newton came to believe that space itself must be subjected to “the method of the geometers”. On Newton’s understanding of this method, foundational theoretical terms (like “space”) are not defined a priori, but are defined a posteriori through the machinery of physical theory. This relativizes their application to the scope of the physical theory in question. Because of this understanding of the “manner of the geometers”, Newton's concept of space ceased to have a general, metaphysical application (as it did in De Gravitatione) and became relativized to the framework of the Principia.

2009 February 27 at 5:00 pm
Closed Timelike Curves
Bryan Roberts

We explore the possibility that closed timelike curves might be allowed by the laws of physics. A closed timelike curve is perhaps the closest thing to time travel that general relativity allows. We will begin by reviewing just what closed timelike curves are, and in what kinds of contexts they were first shown to appear. We then explore how one might actually travel on a closed timelike curve, and discuss two recent no-go results which suggest that this endeavor is impossible.

2009 February 27 at 5:30 pm
How Math Condemned Aristoxenian Harmonics
and Why it Shouldn't Have
Julia Bursten

Aristoxenus of Tarentum (ca. 4th century BCE), a student of Aristotle, proposed a unique way of characterizing harmonic intervals. His method, unlike those of his contemporaries, relied heavily on the testing of consonance and dissonance by the ear. This school of harmonic thought received much criticism during the millennium following Aristoxenus’ life, and the first defenses of his harmonics do not appear in Western music theory literature until the 16th century CE. In this paper, I outline the content of Aristoxenus’ method of distributing harmonic intervals over an octave by reconstructing the arguments given in Aristoxenus’ only surviving musical text, the Elementa Harmonica. I contrast this method with that of Pythagoras, and I follow later literature on music theory that holds up Pythagoras’ method while putting down Aristoxenus’. I introduce the first defenses of Aristoxenus’ system, which appear during the middle of the Italian Renaissance and originate in the musical thought of a group known as the Florentine Camerata. Finally, I offer a new way of describing the fundamental distinctions between the Pythagorean and Aristoxenian schools of harmonic science that is implicit but unacknowledged in both Aristonexus’ own writings and in the criticisms he has received.

2009 February 20 at 5:00 pm
Actual Causation in Simple Voting Scenarios
Jonathan Livengood

One might want a theory of causation for a variety of reasons. For example, one might want to make predictions about interventions (policy predictions). Or one might want an account of explanation, either in ordinary language or in science. These purposes are best-served by type or generic theories of causation, like those presented in Pearl (2000) and Spirtes et al. (2000). Recently, the basic ideas set out by these authors have been used by Woodward (2003), Halpern and Pearl (2005), Glymour and Wimberly (2007), and Glymour et al. (ms) to produce accounts of actual causation.

Whereas generic causation is about what causes what in general, actual causation is about what caused what in a specific circumstance. In general, smoking causes lung cancer. Still, one might wonder whether the Marlboro Man's smoking caused his lung cancer. Actual causation is central both to law and to history. Determining the actual cause (cause in fact, material cause, or conditio sine qua non) of damages is central in the practice of tort law (see Hart and Honore 2002). More generally, questions of moral responsibility depend on facts about actual causation. In historical research, explaining why specific historical events (e.g., the Boshin War, the Boston Tea Party, or the coronation of Napoleon) occurred, determining the relative contributions of various actors to history (e.g., Caesar, Galileo, or Tesla), or deciding the truth-value of historical counterfactuals (e.g., would Japan have surrendered had the United State not dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) are all problems that turn on facts of actual causation.

The present paper considers some odd causal judgments about simple voting scenarios that follow from the theories proposed in Woodward (2003) and Halpern and Pearl (2005). I note three factual impediments to the generality of these models, which arise in the cases considered. I consider possible experiments to better characterize ordinary judgments about actual causation in simple voting scenarios.

2009 February 13 at 4:30 pm
Relational Quantum Theory
Tom Pashby

Carlo Rovelli's Relational Quantum Mechanics is a bold attempt to resolve the measurement problem by denying that there exist objective quantum states - instead, physical quantities only take values relative to a particular observer. Rovelli claims Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity as his inspiration, and model. I examine and compare his motivation and method with that of 'On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies' and note several key disanalogies. The body of the talk is an attempt to understand the position he espouses in the original 1996 paper in comparison with the recent 2007 'Relational EPR' and in the context of his original motivation. In particular, I am concerned by his use(s) of the term 'information' and his treatment of the consistency requirement in EPR.

2009 January 9 at 5:30 pm
How to Solve the Regress of Justification Problem:
Justification as a Three-valued Variable
Peter Gildenhuys

I argue that there are three, rather than just two, justificatory statuses: justified, unjustified, and gap. I present a full inferential model of justification, providing explicit criteria for the deployment of each justificatory status along with explicit implications for each status. A trivalent model of justification accurately captures actual justificatory practice and is not subject to the same objections as are models that deploy only two justificatory statuses.