The problem of hunger is a problem of the inequitable distribution of food entitlements. I argue that ‘modern’ science is implicated in the current form of this problem and that it can only contribute to its resolution, rather than exacerbation, if the forms of its implication are acknowledged. But this requires acceptance of the claim that science is not value-neutral. In part this paper is also an examination, in a particular problem context, of some dimensions of disputes over the value neutrality of science.

The basic problem of perceptual change is how to account for both variation and constancy in perceiving the world. Is order learned? How deep does plasticity go in that respect? I argue that different kinds of perceptual plasticity have been confused in recent debates, notably between J. Fodor and P. M. Churchland. By focusing on changes in the use of concepts, the issues in the Fodor-Churchland debate can be resolved. Beyond that debate, I propose a generalized encoding approach to perception as a way of accounting for a significant form of perceptual change.

Professor Boring is best known for his work in the history of psychology and for good reason: his History of Experimental Psychology and his Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psychology are truly impressive works. However, he has also written numerous articles in the philosophy of science, the psychology of scientific discovery, and the sociology of scientific production, but unfortunately this material has not heretofore been readily accessible. This deficiency, however, has been corrected efficiently by the recent publication of Boring's History, Psychology, and Science: Selected Papers, edited by Robert I. Watson and Donald T. Campbell. The essays in this book represent the whole range of Boring's interests and make essential reading for any serious student of the philosophy of science. Of especial value to philosophers are the essays listed under the titles “The Scientific Method” and “The Mind-Body Problem.” Since the groupings overlap, however, the following essays in other categories are also crucial: “The Nature and History of Experimental Control,” “William James and the Psychology of the Present,” and “The Influence of Evolutionary Theory Upon American Psychological Thought.” All of these essays are interesting but the ones on operationism and theory in psychology, and the one on evolutionary notions in American psychology, are classics and worth very careful consideration and comment.

If feminists argue for the irreducibility of the social dimensions of science, then they ought to embrace the idea that feminist and non-feminist scientists are not in collaboration, but in fact defend different interests. Instead, however, contemporary feminist science studies literature argues that feminist research improves particular, existing scientific enterprises, both epistemically (truer claims) and politically (more democratic methodologies and applications). I argue that the concepts of empirical success and democracy at work in this literature from Longino (1994) and Harding (1996), to Longino (2002), Gilbert and Rader (2001), and Keller (2001) are not sufficiently critical, and fail to do justice to the truly revolutionary work done by feminist scientists. I offer the beginnings of an epistemology of dissensus (as opposed to consensus), using the work of Haraway (1978), Lyotard (1984, 1998), and Ziarek (2001). How would such an epistemology relate to feminist discussions of the possibility of democratic, responsible knowledge?

Child's play? Certainly Alison Gopnik is in good company in pointing to connections between science and child development. To mention just a few luminaries: in psychology, Freud (followed by Erikson and Piaget) looked at the developmental connection between children's play and adult work; in philosophy, Thomas Reid may have been the first to ground the faculty of reasoning in developmental stages that “unfold themselves by degrees; so that it [the child] is inspired with the various principles of common sense” (1764, V, 7). As for connecting commonsense reasoning and science, according to Einstein, “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking” (1954, 290). Quod erat demonstrandum.

Wesley Salmon defends an ontic realism that distinguishes explanatory from descriptive knowledge. Explanatory knowledge makes appeals to (unobservable) theoretical acausal mechanisms. Salmon presents an argument designed both to legitimize attributing truth values to theoretical claims and to justify treating theoretical claims as descriptions. The argument succeeds but only at the price of calling the distinction between explanation and description into question. Even if Salmon’s attempts to distinguish causal mechanisms from other mechanisms are successful, the assumed centrality of the appeal to such mechanisms in providing scientific explanations is left open by Salmon’s account.

The issue of materialism has recently been raised again. Mr. Putnam argues against philosophical behaviorism [4]. Such a position holds, as he construes it, that statements like ‘Jones is angry’ can be analyzed in solely behavioral terms. When one argues against philosophical behaviorism, he might be expected to distinguish this metaphysical position from behavior science. Putnam, however, does not make the distinction. Consequently he argues against both. I shall first state the distinction between these two different things, namely, philosophical behaviorism and behavior science, as I see it. The behavior scientist adopts the thesis that in principle it is possible to predict future behavior on the basis of data concerning environmental, behavioral, and physiological variables. All three of these he considers in physical terms. The behavior scientist thus speaks about physical objects and properties of such. Talking in such terms, he believes that it is in principle possible to coordinate to statements asserting that person X has or is in state of mind Y another statement, employing only the above mentioned physical terms, such that either both are true or both are false. The reasons for the behavior scientist's program are the well known quandaries involved in the observation of other people's minds and the need for intersubjective verification in science. One can further distinguish between a narrower and a broader view of behavior science. The former restricts itself to environmental and behavioral variables at what some call the macro level; the latter includes, or even concentrates upon, physiological variables. As scientists neither the behaviorist nor the physiologist asks or answers philosophical questions, either epistemological or ontological, about minds, bodies, and mental contents.

It is too often forgotten that even the most “objective” science such as physics is but a description, interpretation and ordering of physical reality from a selected point of view.

In founding terrestial dynamics, Galileo, the father of modern experimental physics, selected concepts that could be given exact mathematical definitions and cast in a form conducive to quantitative results. The qualitative aspects of observed phenomena, such as the color of an accelerated body, and the ultimate cause of motion—a purely metaphysical problem—do not enter into the mathematical dynamical system of Galileo.

We suggest that, far from establishing an inconsistency in the standard theory of the geometrical linear continuum, Zeno’s Paradox of Extension merely establishes an inconsistency between the standard theory of geometrical magnitude and a misguided system of length measurement. We further suggest that our resolution of Zeno’s paradox is superior to Adolf Grünbaum’s now standard resolution based on Lebesgue measure theory.

A notation for the language of physics is given, and a system of axioms constructed. It is argued that from the standpoint of a ‘realistic’ ontology our method is preferable to Carnap's ‘coordinate languages.’ The primitive ideas are the part-whole relation μ and the set ℜ of coordinate systems. Only such statements are intended in the axioms as are non-controversial; i.e. no open cosmological questions are prejudged.

Philosophical analysis of spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) in particle physics has been hindered by the unavailability of rigorous formulations of models in quantum field theory (QFT). A strategy for addressing this problem is to use the rigorous models that have been constructed for SSB in quantum statistical mechanics (QSM) systems as a basis for drawing analogous conclusions about SSB in QFT. On the basis of an analysis of this strategy as an instance of the application of the same mathematical formalism to different domains and as an instance of drawing analogies between domains, I conclude that certain structural explanations can be exported from QSM to QFT but that causal explanations cannot.

This paper attempts to present a formal model for the science of decision where “science of decision” is restricted to the work that has been done in formal models and not those aspects connected with the gathering of empirical data and development of measures for the data. One of the difficulties in treating such a phenomenon as decision-making has been to give a precise statement of the problem. The literature of numerous fields is filled with models and talk about models where various restrictions are imposed. Among all of these it seems that the formalistic or logical, game-theoretic, and statistical decision function conceptual schemas have solved some decision problems largely due to the fact that they could give a mathematical formulation of the problem and its solution. The result is that in these three fields the decision problem can be fed into a computer which grinds out an answer for each particular set of parameters.

In 1958 I set down some thoughts that arose from an attempt to consider epistemological problems on the assumptions that (1) The biology of the human nervous system is relevant to epistemology and (2) The human nervous system, like every other object of biological investigation, is a product of evolution by natural selection. These thoughts lay more or less neglected until they were brought stunningly to mind by Professor George Gaylord Simpson's [1] recent paper on “Biology and the Nature of Science”. In that paper Professor Simpson writes:

Newtonian theory has usually been accepted as a paradigm example of an explanation. There are two widely known analyses of what makes it so. According to one analysis, the deductive and predictive nature of the theory is what counts. The second analysis emphasizes the ability of the theory to connect widely different events and laws. The present paper proposes a third analysis stressing three characteristics. (1) The explanation includes a description which is in part of something unobserved. (2) The description is true in the sense of corresponding to the facts. (3) Through the description, the explanation confers “naturalness” upon the thing explained.