Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Full download The Philosophy of Science: A Companion Anouk Barberousse file pdf all chapter on 2024
Full download The Philosophy of Science: A Companion Anouk Barberousse file pdf all chapter on 2024
https://ebookmass.com/product/science-and-humanity-a-humane-
philosophy-of-science-and-religion-1st-edition-andrew-steane/
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-routledge-companion-to-gender-
and-science-fiction-1st-edition-sonja-fritzsche/
https://ebookmass.com/product/bayesian-philosophy-of-science-
variations-on-a-theme-by-the-reverend-thomas-bayes-1st-edition-
stephan-hartmann/
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-philosophy-
of-political-science-harold-kincaid/
The Philosophy and Science of Language Ryan M. Nefdt
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-philosophy-and-science-of-
language-ryan-m-nefdt/
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-philosophy-of-science-
institute-lectures-st-johns-university-studies/
https://ebookmass.com/product/a-companion-to-the-russian-
revolution-1st-edition-edition-daniel-orlovsky/
https://ebookmass.com/product/a-companion-to-aeschylus-peter-
burian/
https://ebookmass.com/product/language-science-and-structure-a-
journey-into-the-philosophy-of-linguistics-ryan-m-nefdt/
The Philosophy of Science
OXFORD STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
General Editor:
Paul Humphreys, University of Virginia
Advisory Board
Anouk Barberousse (European Editor)
Robert W. Batterman
Jeremy Butterfield
Peter Galison
Philip Kitcher
Margaret Morrison
James Woodward
A C O M PA N I O N
Edited by
Anouk Barberousse, Denis Bonnay, and Mikaël Cozic
1
1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xiii
About the Contributors xv
3. Causality—Max Kistler 95
v
vi Contents
16. Philosophy of Cognitive Science—Daniel Andler 595
Index 727
Preface
General Introduction
Philosophy of science has the aim of answering those questions raised by scientific ac-
tivity that are not directly addressed by science itself. Among such questions, we can
mention: What are the overall goals of science, as well as the specific goals of its var-
ious branches? By what means are these goals pursued? What basic principles does it
put into practice? Philosophy of science also tries to understand the relationships that
exist between the scientific disciplines. To what extent, and in what sense, are they,
and should they be, unified? Also belonging to its domain is the relationship between
science and reality. What, if anything, does science tell us about reality? And to what
extent is it justified in making the claims it does?
Just like the sciences themselves, current philosophy of science is multifaceted and
specialized. A philosopher of science may embark on projects as diverse as the develop-
ment of a formal analysis of the concept of confirmation using probability theory and
the study of the potential contribution neuroscience may bring to our understanding
of consciousness. Thus, it becomes difficult for both students and researchers within
a given domain to be aware of the advances and challenges arising in any specific area
in philosophy of science.
The aim of the present book is to expose the main questions, as well as some of the
answers, being discussed in today’s philosophy of science. We view it as the “missing
link” between introductions and research, and our own goals will have been met if this
book successfully bridges the gap between introductions to the philosophy of science
meant for a general audience on the one hand, and research articles and monographs
vii
viii Preface
on the other. It is therefore primarily intended for the use of advanced undergrad-
uate or graduate students who, after a first introduction to the area, may now wish to
deepen their knowledge. We also hope that The Philosophy of Science: A Companion will
be useful to both junior and senior researchers in philosophy of science wishing to fa-
miliarize themselves with areas outside of their own.
Philosophy of science has become too specialized for this goal to be achieved by any
one person. Thus, our book is a collective effort. We have nevertheless endeavored to
present the basic problems that shape contemporary philosophy of science in a co-
herent way. In contrast with encyclopedias, where contributions tend to simply coexist
and thus lack organic unity, we have tried to maximize complementarity and cross-
referencing between the chapters. Our hope is that this has favored a strong sense of
unity, something that is always hard to attain in such collective undertakings.
The two parts of The Philosophy of Science mirror the traditional distinction between
general philosophy of science and philosophy of the special sciences. General Philosophy
of Science (Part I) deals with generic issues raised by scientific activity, independent
of specific disciplines. General philosophy of science was the very core of philosophy
of science up to the middle of the twentieth century. Philosophy of science itself has
dramatically evolved over the last several decades, becoming increasingly devoted to
issues raised by specific scientific disciplines. The study of general problems never-
theless remains a highly active element of philosophy of science. Moreover, it is our
opinion that the study of these general problems is indispensable to those who focus
on the philosophy of some particular scientific discipline or area, since they represent
a set of tools invaluable to understanding their own, specific objects of study.
The objective of the first part of the book is twofold. We intend to both take stock
of the traditional questions which have shaped analytic philosophy of science and to
introduce certain problems that have been raised more recently. Thus the first two
chapters, bearing upon explanation and confirmation, respectively, tackle issues that
were the subject of intense debate in the middle of the twentieth century—notably
among philosophers of science influenced by logical empiricism—and which, as we
shall see, are still much studied today. With causality, c hapter 3 also focuses on a tra-
ditional concept, though one to which logical empiricism has been rather hostile.
Causality is now at the epicenter of a very vibrant area, straddling the borders of phi-
losophy of science and metaphysics. Metaphysics is also at the heart of c hapter 4, which
deals with scientific realism (an issue that underwent a thorough overhaul during the
1980s) and the metaphysics of science, constituting a topic that is much discussed
today. Chapter 5 addresses the issue of knowing how best to analyze some of science’s
primary products, namely theories and models. Starting from the “received view” of
scientific theories, inherited from logical empiricism, it discusses the objections that
have been raised against this view while also looking at alternative conceptions. Lastly,
chapter 8 deals with issues surrounding the reduction and emergence of properties
Preface ix
and/or theories coming from distinct scientific disciplines. Logical empiricism also
contributed greatly to this research area. We shall see that current reflection on the
matter is closely related to metaphysics, philosophy of knowledge, and sometimes also
to the philosophy of the special sciences (particularly the philosophy of mind).
In our view, these six topics—explanation, confirmation, causality, scientific re-
alism, the nature of theories and models, and reduction—constitute the core of gen
eral philosophy of science, even if they do not exhaust it. This latter consideration
in mind, two further issues are also touched on in Part I. Chapter 6 studies the di-
achronic dimensions of scientific activity, a topic made famous by Kuhn’s much cel-
ebrated book (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962/1970). Chapter 7 is more
meta-philosophical in character: it reviews the relations between philosophy of science
and other approaches (notably historical and sociological) which share in the aim of
analyzing scientific activity and which are currently referred to as sciences studies.
Although comprehensive, this does not cover all topics having a justifiable claim to the
label of general philosophy of science. For instance, the growing literature on statistics
and statistical reasoning is not represented. But it is our contention that Part I of The
Philosophy of Science will provide the reader with a satisfyingly complete survey of con-
temporary general philosophy of science.
For several decades, philosophers of science have increasingly directed their attention
toward the finer details of scientific activity, in particular to issues exclusive to specific
disciplines. These issues are the object of the philosophy of the special sciences, to
which the second part of The Philosophy of Science is devoted.
Compared with general philosophy of science, philosophy of the special sciences
appears two-sided. Certain problems are essentially instances or applications of
issues belonging to general philosophy of science. In this case, more often than not,
the targeted area of knowledge requires some reconsideration of the issue on the
part of the philosopher. For instance, the issue of justification or confirmation of
theories raises specific problems when one studies, let’s say, economic or mathemat-
ical theories, as opposed to theories from physics, which often serve to illustrate con-
firmation theories. By contrast, certain other issues in the philosophy of the special
sciences are entirely generated by the specific concepts and methods of a given field.
The discussions on the concept of function (in biology) or on the nature of linguistic
universals (in linguistics) are two cases in point. The main objective of the second part
of this volume is to introduce the reader to a representative sample of the issues that
currently structure the philosophy of the special sciences. We have done our best to
respect this two-sided character, i.e., to show how some of the issues are very closely
linked to the “big” issues in general philosophy of science while others are specific to
certain specialized domains of science.
The first two chapters of Part II are devoted to the philosophy of the formal sciences.
More precisely, chapter 9 is concerned with logic and chapter 10 with mathematics. The
x Preface
philosophy of the formal sciences has often been left out of handbooks or textbooks
on the philosophy of science. One of the reasons that implicitly underpins this state of
affairs is that the issues raised by these formal sciences can seem remote from those
raised by bona fide empirical sciences. But there are other reasons that speak in favor
of integrating philosophical discussion on these disciplines. First, there is some inter-
esting convergence between certain issues in the philosophy of the formal sciences
and other issues in general philosophy of science, for example, those related to the
nature of explanation. Second, there are certain other issues which call for a unified
and coordinated answer from both the philosophy of the formal sciences and other
branches within philosophy of science. For example, understanding why mathematics
fits into the physical world so well—an issue that lies at the border between the philos-
ophy of mathematics and the philosophy of physics. Or the problem of understanding
mathematical cognition, which is of interest to both philosophy of mathematics and
cognitive science.
Chapters 11 and 12 are devoted to the philosophy of physics and the philosophy of
biology, respectively. These two areas have a special status in philosophy of science.
Philosophy of physics is considered basic because physics is viewed as the fundamental
scientific discipline. This means at least two things. First, that physics is an area where
scientific reasoning is supposed to reach its zenith, and thus, in particular, that it is
indispensable to be at least minimally familiar with it if one wishes to gain an under-
standing of scientific reasoning in general. And, second, that it is crucial to clarify the
picture of the world as it is depicted by the physical sciences. Philosophy of biology
has become an extremely active field, such that there is probably no other area in the
philosophy of the special sciences whose importance has grown more over the last two
decades.
An entire chapter is devoted to the philosophy of medicine. Our main reason for this
is that philosophy of medicine is an area where philosophy of science overlaps with
normative and practical philosophy. This reveals itself with respect to the question of
whether the concepts of health and illness have an essential normative dimension,
and also as regards the study of clinical reasoning. In both cases, the discussion goes
beyond the purely epistemic point of view dominant in the philosophy of the natural
sciences.
Another particular feature of Part II is the space we have devoted to philosophy
of the human and social sciences (chapters 14 to 17). Interestingly, in these areas
the philosopher’s stance and corresponding expectations may differ from those that
are generally endorsed in the philosophy of the natural sciences. In the former area,
philosophers often assume that there is nothing wrong with the way science is done
and thus refrain from making recommendations to scientists or from criticizing their
methods. Not so in the latter case, and this is to be expected, since there are far more
methodological uncertainties, debates, and disagreements involved in the human and
social sciences.
Chapters 14 and 15 broach the social sciences. Chapter 14 deals with general issues
in the philosophy of the social sciences, for example, methodological individualism
Preface xi
and the relations between social sciences and cognitive sciences. Chapter 15 focuses
on one specific social science, economics. This emphasis is to be welcomed, in light
of the scientific and social impact of economics, and all the more so since it currently
constitutes a particularly active field of study for philosophers.
The last two chapters are organized in a similar way. Both are devoted to disciplines
that study human cognition. Chapter 16 is a general presentation of the issues raised
by cognitive science from the point of view of philosophy of science. Chapter 17, on the
other hand, bears on one specific discipline—linguistics. While philosophy of language
is a well-structured and well-known area in philosophy, there are relatively few phil-
osophical discussions on linguistics as a science. Both for this reason and for the fact
that the philosophy of cognitive science focuses more on disciplines like psychology
and neuroscience, we deemed it fitting to devote a whole chapter to linguistics.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the contributors to this volume, to Thierry Martin (the editor of
the series in which an earlier version of The Philosophy of Science was published, under
the title “Précis de Philosophie des Sciences” in 2011), to Daniel Andler who brought
financial support to this initial version through his Senior Fellowship of the Institut
Universitaire de France and to Christopher Robertson, who translated many of the
chapters’ earlier versions. The current version has benefited from the comments of two
anonymous referees. It was notably supported by the Institute of Cognitive Studies at
Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris) under grant ANR-10-L ABEX-0087 IEC and by Mikaël
Cozic’s Junior Fellowship of the Institut Universitaire de France. Lastly, we wish to
thank the Institut d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences et des techniques (UMR
8590, Paris I—ENS Ulm—CNRS), which has provided us with a highly stimulating sci-
entific environment for 15 years.
Anouk Barberousse, Denis Bonnay, and Mikaël Cozic, Paris, January 2018.
xiii
About the Contributors
xv
xvi About the Contributors
formal theories of rationality. His current research concerns the relationship between
cognitive science and positive and normative economics, as well as several issues
in Bayesian epistemology, including the revision of one’s beliefs upon learning the
opinion of others.
Jacques Dubucs is a senior scientist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
and the head of the Social Sciences and Humanities Department at the French Ministry
of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation. His scientific work deals with logic
and philosophy of science.
Paul Égré (born 1975; PhD, 2004) is directeur de recherche at Institut Jean-Nicod
(CNRS) and an associate professor in the Philosophy Department of Ecole Normale
Supérieure in Paris. Besides work in formal semantics and on the epistemology of lin-
guistic theory, a large part of Paul Egré’s work over the last decade has been on the
topic of vagueness in language and in perception, dealing with semantic, logical, and
psychological aspects of the phenomenon. Since 2012, Egré is also the editor-in-chief
of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology.
Jon Elster is the Robert K. Merton Professor of Social Science at Columbia University.
He is the author or editor of more than thirty-five books translated into more than
seventeen languages on the philosophy of social sciences, the theory of rational choice,
political psychology, deliberative democracy, and the history of political thought (Marx
and Tocqueville), to name a few of their subjects. He is currently working on a compar-
ative study of the Federal Convention (1787) and the first French constituent assembly
(1789–1791).
Michael Esfeld is full professor of science at the University of Lausanne. His research
is in the metaphysics of science, the philosophy of physics, and the philosophy of
mind. His latest book publication is A Minimalist Ontology of the Natural World, with
Dirk-André Deckert (New York: Routledge, 2017).
Élodie Giroux is an assistant professor at Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University, where
she teaches philosophy of science and philosophy of medicine. She is director of the
master’s in “Culture and Health.” Her main research interests are the history and
epistemology of “risk factor epidemiology”; causation in medicine and public health;
and risk, health, and disease concepts. She is currently working on precision medi-
cine. Besides several papers on modern epidemiology, she published Après Canguilhem,
définir la santé et la maladie (Paris: PUF, 2010) and Naturalism in the Philosophy of Health
(Cham: Springer, 2016), and she edited a special issue on the history of risk factor ep-
idemiology in Revue d’Histoire des Sciences (2011) and on precision medicine in Lato
Sensu (2018).
Max Kistler is professor at the Department of Philosophy at University Paris 1
Panthéon–Sorbonne and head of IHPST (Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des
Sciences et des Techniques). His research topics include causation, powers and
dispositions, laws of nature, natural kinds, and reduction. He is the author of Causation
About the Contributors xvii
and Laws of Nature (Routledge, 2006), L’esprit matériel. Réduction et émergence (Ithaque,
2016), and coeditor (with B. Gnassounou) of Dispositions and Causal Powers (Ashgate,
2007).
Hélène Landemore is an associate professor of political science at Yale University. She
is a political theorist interested in democratic theory, theories of justice, Enlightenment
thinkers, and the philosophy of social sciences. Her book Democratic Reason (Princteon,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013) was awarded the 2015 David and Elaine Spitz
Prize for best book in liberal and/or democratic theory published two years earlier. She
is currently writing a new book on postrepresentative or “open” democracy.
Maël Lemoine is a professor at the University of Bordeaux, France, where he teaches
philosophy of medical science. He published an introductory essay in the philosophy
of medical science in 2017 and has recently published various articles on biological re-
search in psychiatry, animal models, and precision medicine.
Pascal Ludwig is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy, Sorbonne
Université, Paris. He has coauthered several books on the philosophy of science and
the philosophy of the mind.
Thomas Pradeu is a CNRS senior investigator in philosophy of science (permanent
position) at ImmunoConcept (CNRS and University of Bordeaux), and associated
member at the Institut d’Histoire et des Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques
(CNRS and University Pantheon–Sorbonne). His research focuses on biological indi-
viduality, immunology, the microbiota, and the interactions between philosophy and
science.
Philippe de Rouilhan is a senior researcher emeritus at the CNRS and a member of
the Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques (CNRS and
Université Panthéon–Sorbonne), of which he was the director for a long time. His work
pertains to logic lato sensu or, more specifically, to formal ontology, formal semantics,
philosophy of logic, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of language. He is cur-
rently preparing a book on truth, logical consequence, and logical universalism.
Marion Vorms is a lecturer (maître de conférences) in philosophy at University Paris 1
Panthéon–Sorbonne and a Marie Curie fellow at Birkbeck College, London, psychology
department. Her past work in philosophy of science concerns the nature of scientific
theories and representations. Her new project, which is at the crossroads of episte-
mology and the psychology of reasoning, bears on the notion of reasonable doubt; she
is particularly interested in judicial reasoning and decision-making.
1
Language: Finnish
Z. TOPELIUS
SISÄLLYS:
Lukioille.
Vanhoja Runoja.
Loihtiminen.
Lemmingäinen.
Rauan Sanat.
Tulen Synty.
Tulen Synty. (toisin)
Tulen Sanat.
Väinämöisen toimituksia.
Kalman Sanat.
Ummen Sanat.
Kanteleen Synty. (toisin)
Rukous, jolla Tapio (metän haltia) kutsuttiin.
Nykyisempiä Lauluja.
Orjaväestä.
Kellon kylän Mariasta.
Juttu Juomareista.
Laula Tupakan puutteesta.
Talonpojan muistutus Herrasmiehelle.
Lukioille.
Vanhoja Runoja.
Loihtiminen.
Lemminkäinen.
Rauan Sanat.
Tulen Synty.
Mis on tulta tuuviteltu,
Valkiata vaaputeltu?
Ylisessä taivosessa,
Alasessa maa-emässä.
Siell' on tulta tuviteltu.
Vaskisessa kätkyessä
Hopiaiset hihnat helkky.
Kokko kultanen kolasi,
Kirpposi tuli kipinä,
Poltti maan, poltti Manolan,
Poltti kuuen kirkkokunnan,
Poltti kuuen kuokan silmän,
Kahen kirvehen hamaran;
Meni reppänä retusen,
Rikko rinnat neitoselta,
Poltti lapsen kätkyestä;
Meni Aluenjärveen,
Nielipä Sini keräsen,
Huiksenteli, käyksenteli,
Tuossa tuskissa tulen,
Palavoissa valkioissa.
Tulipa sikiä siika,
Nielipä sini keräsen,
Huiksenteli, käyksenteli
Tuossa tuskissa tulen,
Palavoissa valkioissa.
Siika saarien sivutte,
Lohi luotoin lomahti.
Tulipa lohi punanen,
Nielipä silian siian,
Huiksenteli, käyksenteli
Tuossa tuskissa tulen,
Palavoissa valkioissa.
Lohi luotoin lomahti,
Siika saarien sivutte,
Tuossa tuskissa tulen,
Palavoissa valkioissa.
***
Sisarekset sotkottaret,
Veljet verkkoa kutovat,
Yhtenä kesäissä yönä.
Saipa nuotan valmihiksi.
Veettiin kerran myötä vettä,
Ihveniä, Ahvenia,
Kaikkia veen kaloja.
Ei saatu sitä kaloa,
Mitä vasten nuotta tehty.
Toisen kerran vasta vettä,
Ihveniä, Ahvenia,
Kaikkia meren kaloja.
Ei saatu sitä kaloa,
Mitä vasten nuotta tehty.
Laski kolmannenkin kerran,
Puuttu nuotta puutoksehen;
Kivellenkö vai haolle,
Vaiko hauvin hartiolle,
Veen koiran koukku-luille?
Sano vanha Väinämöinen,
Tämä on hauvoin hartiolla.
Veen koiran koukku-luilla,
Ei ole käsin koskemista,
Ilman rauta rukkaisitta.
***
Saipa hauvin veneeseensä,
Saipa hän halian hauvin,
Puhkasi halian hauvin,
Siin oli lohi punanen,
Puhkasi lohen punasen,
Siin' oli siliä siika,
Puhkasi silian siian,
Siin' oli sini keränen,
Puhkasi sini keräsen,
Siin' oli tuli kipunen.
Tulen Synty.
(Toisin.)