2008
November 21 at 6:30 pm
The Case of the Divergent Descriptions: An Experimental Investigation
of Semantics, Cross-cultural Style
Justin Sytsma and Jonathan Livengood
In two fascinating articles, Machery, Mallon, Nichols, and Stich
(2004; forthcoming) use experimental methods to raise a specter
of doubt about reliance on intuitions in developing theories of
reference which are then deployed in philosophical arguments outside
the philosophy of language. Machery et al. ran a cross-cultural
survey asking Western and East Asian subjects about a famous case
from the philosophical literature on reference (Kripke’s
Gödel example). They found significant variation in subjects’
intuitions about that case. While there have been a number of
theoretical responses to this work, there have not yet been any
experimental responses. This paper fills that gap. We noticed
an ambiguity in the question Machery et al. posed in their original
experiment; we then ran three studies to test the impact of this
ambiguity on subjects’ responses. We found that the ambiguity
accounts for much of the variation found in their original experiment.
We argue that in the light of our data, Machery et al.’s
argument is no longer convincing.
2008
October 31 at 5:00 pm
Group Selection Does Not Explain Anything
Peter Gildenhuys
Group selection is often invoked to explain the persistence of
altruism in natural populations. In this talk, I show how to explain
the persistence of altruism in natural populations without invoking
group selection. I then show how putative explanations of the
persistence of altruism that invoke group selection fail to specify
under what conditions the core mathematical model used to explain
altruism can be deployed. Since the explanation of altruism in
nature depends crucially on mathematical models that demonstrate
it persistence, "group selection" cannot explain the
persistence of altruism in natural populations.
2008
October 24 at 6:00 pm
Harvey's De generatione animalium and the New Science
Benny Goldberg
In this presentation I shall discuss the woefully neglected last
work of William Harvey, De generatione animalim (1651). My goal
is twofold. First I describe and explain Harvey's argument for
epigenesis, the theory that an embryo develops over time, part-by-part.
This theory is, as it turns out, the correct one, but until the
late 18th century it had almost no proponents besides Harvey and
Aristotle. This brings us to the next goal for the presentation,
arguing that Harvey's Aristotelianism provided a better home for
his biological research than the burgeoning philosophy of mechanism
and corpuscularianism. The main reason for this is that, given
the metaphysical pictures and explanatory schemes of mechanism
and corpuscularianism, epigenesis turned out to be a wholey inexplicable
and mysterious phenomena, and thus it was rejected in favor of
the doctrine of preformation. I will conclude with some thoughts
about Harvey, mechanism, and early modern life sciences.
2008
October 24 at 5:00 pm
De Artificio Mechanico Musculorum:
The Mechanical Problems in William Harvey's De motu locali animalium
Peter Distelzweig
Most scholarly attention given William Harvey has centered on
the De Motu Cordis of 1628 and its reception. This focus is not
without reason, as it is to this work that his near contemporaries
gave most attention and (eventually) praise. Disproportionately
little attention has been given to his other, much more massive
publication on the generation of animals; and even less still
has been given to his various unpublished notes. Among these latter
is a collection of notes on the local motion of animals and the
anatomy of the motive organs, particularly muscle; it was edited
and translated by Gwenneth Whitteridge and published as De Motu
Locali Animalium, 1627 (MLA) in 1959. Though generally overlooked
in the limited literature on these notes, Harvey displays here
a significant preoccupation with mechanics and the role of mechanical
reasoning in anatomy. In these notes we find a number of more
(and sometimes less) obvious allusions to the pseudo-Aristotelian
Mechanical Problems and a clear sketch of the nature of mechanics
and its place in the study of the anatomy of muscles. In this
paper I examine this feature of MLA, focusing particularly on
how Harvey conceptualizes the place of mechanics in anatomical
explanation. Besides its intrinsic interest, this work sheds some
light on the complicated interaction between Harvey's Aristotelian
project in anatomy and the developing mechanical philosophy by
pointing to an underappreciated element of the situation: Harvey's
familiarity with the sixteenth and seventeenth century tradition
of pseudo-Aristotelian mechanics.
2008
October 17 at 6:00 pm
John Dalton: From Puzzles to Chemistry by Way of Meteorology
Karen Zwier
Historical research on John Dalton has been dominated by an attempt
to reconstruct the origins of his so-called "chemical atomic
theory". This enterprise has encountered much difficulty,
often blamed on the poor condition, uncertain chronology, and
contradictions of extant manuscripts. Although difficulties with
the Dalton manuscripts are a serious problem for historical research,
I argue that there is a much greater problem in the existing literature:
the misguided assumption that Dalton's research was guided by
the pursuit of the chemical atomic theory. In this paper, I cast
doubt on methods which attempt to summarize the atomic theory
in a concise way. I also criticize any approach which views Dalton's
atomic theory as the pinnacle of his career toward which all his
prior research was supposedly directed. I propose a different
approach that makes use of the manuscripts in a more productive
way, and results in a better picture of his life and research.
I show that Dalton's chemical work grew out of two previous interests
that he maintained throughout his entire life: puzzle solving
and meteorology. A childhood fascination with solving intellectual
puzzles shaped his approach when he took up an interest in meteorology
in his twenties; Dalton then began to see the constitution of
the atmosphere as a "puzzle". In working on this great
puzzle, he gradually turned his interest to specifically chemical
questions. In the end, the puzzles that he worked on required
him to create his own novel philosophy of chemistry that he is
known for today.
2008
October 17 at 5:00 pm
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane's Intellectual Heritage
Thomas Cunningham
John Burdon Sanderson (J. B. S.) Haldane is a celebrated scientist
for his accomplishments in evolutionary theory and for his popular
scientific writings. A recent historical thesis asserts that recognizing
the significant changes in Haldane's philosophical thinking over
his lifetime leads to an increased appreciation of his scientific
and political publications. In this presentation I relate and
assess these contentions. I argue that we cannot appreciate the
dynamics of Haldane's intellectual commitments without a richer
appreciation of his writings and the formative context of his
philosophical outlook. Gaining this assessment requires rethinking
of his father, John Scott (J. S.) Haldane's, philosophical positions
as well as J.B.S.' assessment of them. After reconsidering many
of J. B. S.' public statements concerning his philosophical beliefs
as well as his relationship with his father's views, I conclude
that J.B.S.' views exhibit far more continuity than has been claimed
by others, and that he never underwent any fundamental changes
in his philosophical outlook. Furthermore, I complicate the position
that Haldane exhibited a commitment to the metaphysics of Marxism.
Instead, I argue that he was an agnostic monist, explain what
this means, and how it affects our understanding of this celebrated
biologist whose achievements were influential components of the
modern evolutionary synthesis.
2008
September 9 at 5:00 pm
M.S. Tswett and the Experimenters' Regress
Jonathan Livengood
Mikhail Tswett (1872-1919) was a Russian botanist. His interest
in chlorophyll led him to develop chromatographic adsorption analysis,
a separation technique in physical chemistry, in the years 1902-1903.
In subsequent years, Tswett applied his technique to analyses
of chlorophyll, but the wider scientific community did not accept
his technique as reliable until the 1930s. In defending my explanation
of the rejection of chromatography in an earlier talk, I dealt
with the objection, posed by Glymour and Gyenis, that Tswett’s
technique was rejected because he did not carry out a calibration
experiment showing that chromatographic analysis produced similar
results to entrenched techniques on samples of known composition.
Granting that Tswett did not carry out the experiment described
by Glymour and Gyenis, I argued that Tswett did calibrate his
technique and did so in a way that better fit his problem.
This talk expands on my earlier story by connecting Tswett’s
practice with the so-called Experimenters’ Regress. I argue
that one can explain Tswett’s neglect to carry out Glymour
and Gyenis’ calibration experiment (henceforth GG-calibration)
by considering how the Experimenters’ Regress might be applicable
to the problem in chlorophyll chemistry Tswett was facing. I argue
that even if Tswett had carried out the suggested calibration
experiment, it would not have defeated the only relevant objection
to his technique as applied to chlorophyll. I go on to show how
Tswett overcame this difficulty by carrying out a different kind
of calibration experiment. I then argue that Collins’ account
of the Experimenters’ Regress is incorrect insofar as it
leaves out some background suppositions of experimental work,
including basic ideas about causation. On my account, the Experimenters’
Regress turns out to have a legitimate role to play in scientific
inquiry, but it does not have the sort of skeptical consequences
envisioned by Collins.
2008 September
9 at 5:30 pm
Van Fraassen, Representation and Experimentation
Thomas Pashby
I examine van Fraassen's dialectical argument against
the structural realist in his 2006 (Representation: The problem
for Structuralism), and conclude that there is a move available
that he does not consider, namely that the realist can retreat
to the position that, while no abstract representation can be
distinguished as true simpliciter, this does not entail that we
are unable to choose between them. This is the position taken
by Don Ross' 'Rainforest Realism'. I explore this approach, and
conclude that it is only through an appeal to 'real' foundational
modal structure that it may be rescued from charges of instrumentalism
(as Ross and Ladyman propose).
2008 April 22 at 5pm
Reducing Cognitive Control to Chunks of Cortex
Catherine Stinson
Attention is typically divided into two types that roughly correspond
to 'bottom-up' and 'top-down' processing. Although attention is
a heavily researched topic within psychology and neuroscience,
progress has only recently begun to be made on the top-down variety,
called 'executive attention' or 'cognitive control'. This variety
of attention is thought to be the capacity that manages the goal-directed
planning of complex action sequences, and that directs the allotment
of processing resources during introspection. Much of the research
in this field points towards these capacities being implemented
by particular regions of frontal cortex, including anterior cingulate
cortex. Although most of the conclusions being drawn in this area
of research are modest--that this area is "involved in"
executive attention, for example--some of the labs working in
this area are professing to have located the "source"
of attentional control. By this they seem to mean that they have
reduced attentional control to the activities of a particular
chunk of brain (or at least that they have taken an important
first step in localizing the chunk of brain, even if it remains
to work out the mechanisms functioning there). In this paper I
examine these claims and the evidence being put forward for them.
It is not immediately clear what notion of reduction is being
invoked in these claims, nor what sort of explanation is being
offered. To answer these questions, I look to various papers on
reduction and mechanisms by Schaffner, Machamer, Darden, and Craver.
I argue that the attempt at reduction exemplified in recent research
on executive attention relies on several problematic assumptions
and confusions. I will also discuss broader questions about the
status of explanations in psychology, and what sorts of links
can and should be made between these and neurophysiological theories.
2008 April 18
at 5pm
Maxwell demons and the epistemology of thought experiments
Rawad Skaff
How can we gain knowledge about nature just by thinking about
an imaginary, hypothetical or counterfactual, situation or scenario?
This is the main puzzle concerning the epistemic power of thought
experiments (TE).
I will start by analyzing the different TEs known as "Maxwell
demon" as well as their purposes. My first aim is to test
a criterion required by most philosophers in the literature on
TEs: that the scenario of the TE is "possible". Generally,
the possibility criterion is required in order to justify the
use of TEs and to sort successful TEs from unsuccessful ones.
In other words, it is claimed that an impossible scenario leads
to an unsuccessful TE since it is hard to see how we can obtain
knowledge from them. I argue that the possibility of the scenario
fails as a criterion for their success. My conclusion is based
on the claim that Maxwell original demon is a good TE. This will
bring me to my second aim which is to test several approaches
to TEs in science; in particular those who claim that TEs are
logical arguments or limiting case of 'real' experiments. If my
claim concerning Maxwell original demon is correct than TE can
not be logical arguments neither limiting cases of experiments.
2008 April 4
at 4pm
The Causal Markov Condition: Should You Choose to Accept It?
Karen Zwier
The Causal Markov Condition (CMC) is an axiom specifying a relationship
between a causal graph and the probability distribution over its
vertices. In recent years, there has been much debate (particularly
in BJPS) over this axiom. In this talk, I classify the criticisms
against the CMC into two groups. The first type of criticism is
metaphysical: how do we know that causal relationships, in reality,
always exhibit the precise statistical relationships specified
by the CMC? Could there not be situations, for example, in which
two distinct effects of the same cause are correlated, even when
all common causes are given? The second type of criticism involves
the application of the CMC: Why should we continue to use the
axiom when there are many known "counterexamples"?
In regard to the first type of criticism, I will not attempt
to argue on a metaphysical basis that causal processes must be
independent. I will argue, however, that use of the CMC is reasonable
given the aims of science. I will also give several arguments
to motivate its use. In regard to the second type of criticism,
I will confirm the accusation that CMC is not applicable in every
case. I will, however, show that many cases that have been cited
as "counterexamples" of the CMC are actually instances
of misapplication or misunderstanding. Furthermore, I will argue
that the strength of the CMC lies precisely in an ability to discern
appropriate situations for its use.
2008 March 21
at 5pm
Types of Domains of Knowledge
Selja Seppälä
The research project I am presenting is part of my doctorate
dissertation on the conceptual characteristics and structure of
terminological definitions. Terminology is both an applied activity
and a theoretical discipline. As an applied activity, it consists
in writing mono- or multilingual dictionaries for specialized
domains (sciences, activities, practices, etc.). Thus, definition
writing plays an important role in conveying the knowledge (the
concepts) of the described fields and their overall organization
(the underlying conceptual system). The writing of these definitions
is done through the synthesis of a number of defining or knowledge
rich contexts extracted from domain specific texts (MEYER 2001).
Though subject to a small number of formal restrictions (such
as a single sentence), their writing does not follow precise rules,
at least at the content level, leaving this activity to the intuition
and experience of the terminologist. Therefore, open questions
for work in the field of terminology, as a theoretical discipline,
are the following: what makes a context more relevant than another
to define a certain concept? Moreover, since the definition is
rather limited in space, what are the characteristics of the concept
to be included in the definition?
One of my working hypotheses is that the conceptual structure
of a definition is at least partly dependent on the type of domain
to which it is attached. To be tested, it needs however further
clarification: what are types of domains of knowledge? My main
objective is, therefore, to try to find what characteristic features
could be used to define different types of domains. I will first
see what is meant by domain in terminology. I will then make a
brief overview of some attempts to define types of domains and
examine other possible criteria that could serve that purpose.
I will finally delineate possible bottom-up methods to empirically
define types of domains.
2008 February
8 at 4pm
Status Bias and the Matthew Effect in Philosophy
Jason Byron
The "Matthew Effect" was introduced by Robert Merton
to describe the disproportionate credit high-status scientists
get for their work, at the expense of low-status scientists for
work of the same or similar quality. The effect can be generated
by biased attention (if the scientific community is not be aware
of the work of low-status scientists and so accords it little
credit) or by biased assessments of work already known to the
community in favor of high status scientists. I present data from
top philosophy journals that show a very strong negative correlation
between blind review policies and the percentage of high-status
authors published (r = -0.90, P = 0.001). This result suggests
that philosophers assess the quality of research papers at least
in part according to author status, even when carefully attending
to the content of the papers, as for example during peer review.
I argue that this form of status bias, even if appropriate in
science, is generally inappropriate in philosophy, given general
differences in the epistemic communities of scientists and philosophers.
