In a recent paper (1994) Wesley Salmon has replied to criticisms (e.g., Dowe 1992c, Kitcher 1989) of his (1984) theory of causality, and has offered a revised theory which, he argues, is not open to those criticisms. The key change concerns the characterization of causal processes, where Salmon has traded “the capacity for mark transmission” for “the transmission of an invariant quantity.” Salmon argues against the view presented in Dowe (1992c), namely that the concept of “possession of a conserved quantity” is sufficient to account for the difference between causal and pseudo processes. Here that view is defended, and important questions are raised about the notion of transmission and about gerrymandered aggregates.

Expected accuracy arguments have been used by several authors (Leitgeb and Pettigrew and Greaves and Wallace) to support the diachronic principle of conditionalization, in updates where there are only finitely many possible propositions to learn. I show that these arguments can be extended to infinite cases, giving an argument not just for conditionalization but also for principles known as ‘conglomerability’ and ‘reflection’. This shows that the expected accuracy approach is stronger than has been realized. I also argue that we should be careful to distinguish diachronic update principles from related synchronic principles for conditional probability.

I present and defend the generalized selected effects (GSE) theory of function. According to GSE, the function of a trait consists in the activity that contributed to its bearer’s differential reproduction, or differential retention, within a population. Unlike the traditional selected effects (SE) theory, it does not require that the functional trait helped its bearer reproduce; differential retention is enough. Although the core theory has been presented previously, I go significantly beyond those presentations by providing a new argument for GSE and defending it from a recent objection. I also sketch its implications for teleosemantics and philosophy of medicine.

The Reformation, it has been said, changed the course of history. Most people would agree. At the very least, agree or not, they would hold the proposition to be one worth considering. They would be unlikely to reject it out of hand as incapable of being either true or false because it had no meaning. For, of course, “everybody knows” what the Reformation was and, elaborating a little, we can make clear what we meant by changing the course of history. Yet it is just statements of this sort that cause much methodological wrangling. Their controversial nature is due, in large part, to controversy over the status of such terms as “the Reformation” and, generally, group or macroscopic concepts. Since not only history, but sociology, political science, social psychology, and economics also widely use concepts referring to groups and their properties, rather than to individuals, the controversy has wide ramifications. And because there are, as it were, so many vested interests involved, the dispute also tends to acquire an ideological tone not altogether consonant with dispassionate inquiry. Bad temper and mutual recrimination in scientific discussion are generally a sign that ideological defenses are being shored up. Just possibly, a philosopher whose substantive concern in any empirical field is minimal may hope to be considered above the battle, as one who, having no private axe to grind, can be concerned only with clarifying the logical issues involved. In this hope, I wish to explore as systematically as possible the tangled web of issues woven about the status of group concepts and their relationship to those referring to individuals. Intertwined in this controversy are two different issues. One has to do with the nature of the terms or concepts of social science; the other with the nature of its laws and theories and their relationship in turn to those in other areas. The first issue is one of meaning, the second of reduction. Success in unsnarling the various strands of this web may alone help abate the fury of the controversy.

In seeking to explain the evolution of social cooperation, many scholars are using increasingly complex game-theoretic models. These complexities often model readily observable features of human and animal populations. In the case of previous games analyzed in the literature, these modifications have had radical effects on the stability and efficiency properties of the models. We will analyze the effect of adding spatial structure to two communication games: the Lewis Sender-Receiver game and a modified Stag Hunt game. For the Stag Hunt, we find that the results depart strikingly from previous models. In all cases, the departures increase the explanatory value of the models for social phenomena.

The so-called “non-commutativity” of probability kinematics has caused much unjustified concern. When identical learning is properly represented, namely, by identical Bayes factors rather than identical posterior probabilities, then sequential probability-kinematical revisions behave just as they should. Our analysis is based on a variant of Field's reformulation of probability kinematics, divested of its (inessential) physicalist gloss.

Methodological norms are seen as rules defining a competitive game, and it is argued that rational recognition-seeking scientists can reach a collective agreement about which specific norms serve better their individual interests, especially if the choice is made ‘under a veil of ignorance’, i.e., before knowing what theory will be proposed by each scientist. Norms for theory assessment are distinguished from norms for theory choice (or inference rules), and it is argued that pursuit of recognition only affects this second type of rule. An inference rule similar to ‘eliminative induction’ is defended on the basis of such a possible agreement. According to this contractarian approach, both the explanation and the justification of scientific norms only need to refer to the preferences of individual scientists, without assuming the existence of ‘collective’ points of view.

One of the most difficult and interesting problems of rational decision is the choice among possible diverging paths in theory construction and among competing scientific theories—i.e., systems of accurate testable hypotheses. This task involves many beliefs—some warranted and others not as warranted—and marks decisive crossroads. Suffice to recall the current conflict between the general theory of relativity and alternative theories of gravitation (e.g., Whitehead's) that account for the same empirical evidence, the rivalry among different interpretations of quantum mechanics (e.g., Bohr-Heisenberg's, de Broglie-Bohm's, and Landé's), and the variety of cosmological theories (e.g., Tolman's cyclical model and the steady-state theory). They all account for the same observed facts although they may predict different kinds of as yet unknown facts; they are consequently, up to now, empirically equivalent theories even though they are conceptually different and may even involve different philosophical views—i.e., they are conceptually inequivalent.

Philosophers and psychologists have long worried that the human tendency to anthropomorphize leads us to err in our understanding of nonhuman minds. This tendency, which I call intuitive anthropomorphism, is a heuristic used by our unconscious folk psychology to understand nonhuman animals. The dominant understanding of intuitive anthropomorphism underestimates its complexity. If we want to understand and control intuitive anthropomorphism, we must treat it as a cognitive bias and look to the empirical evidence. This evidence suggests that the most common control for intuitive anthropomorphism, Morgan’s Canon, should be rejected, while others are incomplete. It also suggests new approaches.

It is argued that recent discussion of the principle of the identity of indiscernibles (PII) and quantum mechanics has lost sight of the broader philosophical motivation and significance of PII and that the ‘received view' of the status of PII in the light of quantum mechanics survives recent criticisms of it by Muller, Saunders, and Seevinck.

The subject of this paper is the philosophical problem of accounting for the relationship between mathematics and non-mathematical reality. The first section, devoted to the importance of the problem, suggests that many of the reasons for engaging in philosophy at all make an account of the relationship between mathematics and reality a priority, not only in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science, but also in general epistemology/metaphysics. This is followed by a (rather brief) survey of the major, traditional philosophies of mathematics indicating how each is prepared to deal with the present problem. It is shown that (the standard formulations of) some views seem to deny outright that there is a relationship between mathematics and any non-mathematical reality; such philosophies are clearly unacceptable. Other views leave the relationship rather mysterious and, thus, are incomplete at best. The final, more speculative section provides the direction of a positive account. A structuralist philosophy of mathematics is outlined and it is proposed that mathematics applies to reality though the discovery of mathematical structures underlying the non-mathematical universe.

It is widely accepted that the notion of an inertial frame is central to Newtonian mechanics and that the correct space-time structure underlying Newton’s methods in Principia is neo-Newtonian or Galilean space-time. I argue to the contrary that inertial frames are not needed in Newton’s theory of motion, and that the right space-time structure for Newton’s Principia requires the notion of parallelism of spatial directions at different times and nothing more.

This article develops a new, general account of replication (the Resampling Account of replication). I argue that a replication is an experiment that resamples the experimental components of an original experiment that are treated as random factors and that the function of replications is, narrowly, to assess the reliability of the replicated experiments. On this basis, I argue that the common notion of conceptual replication is confused and that the ongoing controversy about the relative value of direct and conceptual replications should be dissolved.

Normic laws have the form “if A, then normally B.” They are omnipresent in everyday life and non-physical ‘life’ sciences such as biology, psychology, social sciences, and humanities. They differ significantly from ceteris-paribus laws in physics. While several authors have doubted that normic laws are genuine laws at all, others have argued that normic laws express a certain kind of prototypical normality which is independent of statistical majority. This paper presents a foundation for normic laws which is based on generalized evolution theory and explains their omnipresence, lawlikeness, and reliability. It is argued that the fact that normic laws are a product of evolution must establish a systematic connection between prototypical and statistical normality.

This paper considers the evolution of the problem of scientific rationality from Kant through Carnap to Kuhn. I argue for a relativized and historicized version of the original Kantian conception of scientific a priori principles and examine the way in which these principles change and develop across revolutionary paradigm shifts. The distinctively philosophical enterprise of reflecting upon and contextualizing such principles is then seen to play a key role in making possible rational intersubjective communication between otherwise incommensurable paradigms.

The basic task of the essay is to exhibit science as a rational enterprise. I argue that in order to do this we need to change quite fundamentally our whole conception of science.

Today it is rather generally taken for granted that a precondition for science to be rational is that in science we do not make substantial assumptions about the world, or about the phenomena we are investigating, which are held permanently immune from empirical appraisal. According to this standard view, science is rational precisely because science does not make a priori metaphysical presuppositions about the world forever preserved from possible empirical refutation. It is of course accepted that an individual scientist, developing a new theory, may well be influenced by his own metaphysical presuppositions. In addition, it is acknowledged that a successful scientific theory, within the context of a particular research program, may be protected for a while from refutation, thus acquiring a kind of temporary metaphysical status, as long as the program continues to be empirically progressive. All such views unite, however, in maintaining that science cannot make permanent metaphysical presuppositions, held permanently immune from objective empirical evaluation. According to this standard view, the rationality of science arises, not from the way in which new theories are discovered, but rather from the way in which already formulated theories are appraised in the light of empirical considerations. And the fundamental problem of the rationality of science—the Humean problem of induction—concerns precisely the crucial issue of the rationality of accepting theories in the light of evidence.

In this essay I argue that this widely accepted standard conception of science must be completely rejected if we are to see science as a rational enterprise. In order to assess the rationality of accepting a theory in the light of evidence it is essential to consider the ultimate aims of science. This is because adopting different aims for science will lead us, quite rationally, to accept different theories in the light of evidence. I argue that a basic aim of science is to explain. At the outset science simply presupposes, in a completely a priori fashion, that explanations can be found, that the world is ultimately intelligible or simple. In other words, science simply presupposes in an a priori way the metaphysical thesis that the world is intelligible, and then seeks to convert this presupposed metaphysical theory into a testable scientific theory. Scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to help us realize this fundamental aim.

At once a crucial problem arises. If scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to lead us towards articulating a presupposed metaphysical theory, it is clearly essential that we can choose rationally, in an a priori way, between all the very different possible metaphysical theories that can be thought up, all the very different ways in which the universe might ultimately be intelligible. For holding different aims, accepting different metaphysical theories conceived of as blueprints for future scientific theories will, quite rationally, lead us to accept different scientific theories. Thus it is only if we can choose rationally between conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories that we will be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of our present day scientific theories. We thus face the crucial problem: How can we choose rationally between conflicting possible aims for science, conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories? It is only if we can solve this fundamental problem concerning the aims of science that we can be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of existing scientific theories.

There is a further point here. If we could choose rationally between rival aims, rival metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories, then we would in effect have a rational method for the discovery of new scientific theories! Thus we reach the result: there is only a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories if there is a rational method of discovery.

I shall argue that the aim-oriented theory of scientific inquiry to be advocated here succeeds in exhibiting science as a rational enterprise in that it succeeds in providing a rational procedure for choosing between rival metaphysical blueprints: it thus provides a rational, if fallible, method of discovery, and a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories—thus resolving the Humean problem.

In Part I of the essay I argue that the orthodox conception of science fails to exhibit science as a rational enterprise because it fails to solve the Humean problem of induction. The presuppositional view advocated here does however succeed in resolving the Humean problem. In Part II of the essay I spell out the new aim-oriented theory of scientific method that becomes inevitable once we accept the basic presuppositional viewpoint. I argue that this new aim oriented conception of scientific method is essentially a rational method of scientific discovery, and that the theory has important implications for scientific practice.

In recent years the social nature of scientific inquiry has generated considerable interest. We examine the effect of an epistemically impure agent on a community of honest truth seekers. Extending a formal model of network epistemology pioneered by Zollman, we conclude that an intransigently biased agent prevents the community from ever converging to the truth. We explore two solutions to this problem, including a novel procedure for endogenous network formation in which agents choose whom to trust. We contend that our model nicely captures aspects of current problems in medical research and gesture at some morals for medical epistemology more generally.

Can there be good reasons for judging one set of probabilistic assertions more reliable than a second? There are many candidates for measuring “goodness“ of probabilistic forecasts. Here, I focus on one such aspirant: calibration. Calibration requires an alignment of announced probabilities and observed relative frequency, e.g., 50 percent of forecasts made with the announced probability of .5 occur, 70 percent of forecasts made with probability .7 occur, etc.

To summarize the conclusions: (i) Surveys designed to display calibration curves, from which a recalibration is to be calculated, are useless without due consideration for the interconnections between questions (forecasts) in the survey. (ii) Subject to feedback, calibration in the long run is otiose. It gives no ground for validating one coherent opinion over another as each coherent forecaster is (almost) sure of his own long-run calibration. (iii) Calibration in the short run is an inducement to hedge forecasts. A calibration score, in the short run, is improper. It gives the forecaster reason to feign violation of total evidence by enticing him to use the more predictable frequencies in a larger finite reference class than that directly relevant.

Biological research on race has often been seen as motivated by or lending credence to underlying racist attitudes; in part for this reason, recently philosophers and biologists have gone through great pains to essentially deny the existence of biological human races. We argue that human races, in the biological sense of local populations adapted to particular environments, do in fact exist; such races are best understood through the common ecological concept of ecotypes. However, human ecotypic races do not in general correspond with ‘folk’ racial categories, largely because many similar ecotypes have multiple independent origins. Consequently, while human natural races exist, they have little or nothing in common with ‘folk’ races.

This article is primarily a study of the group selection controversy, with special emphasis on the period from 1962 to the present, and the rise of inclusive fitness theory. Interest is focused on the relations between individual fitness theory and other fitness theories and on the methodological imperatives used in the controversy over the status of these theories. An appendix formalizes the notion of “assertive part” which is used in the informal discussion of the methodological imperatives elicited from the controversy.