Although accounts of evolutionary altruism which leave the question of whether altruism can evolve in nature open to empirical confirmation/refutation have been worked out for special (two-trait) cases, no real effort has been made to work out such accounts for general (N-trait) cases. It is tempting to take this lack of attention as evidence for an inextricably conventional element, which precludes such accounts from being of practical scientific value. I argue that such accounts do generalize in a natural way. As is often the case in science, generalizing theoretically simplified notions is not straightforward because of issues hidden in the special case. These issues do not, however, turn out to be essentially conventional.

The aim of Stich's book is to further the controversial thesis that the conceptual framework of ‘folk’ psychology will have no significant role to play in a mature cognitive science. Skepticism about the scientific relevance of folk psychology has been voiced by others (behaviorists and nonbehaviorists alike); but Stich's critique is both novel and more fully developed than earlier ones. The charge is not–-or not simply–-that ‘folk theory’ is a “degenerating paradigm“ (Churchlands), or that, in general, the constructs of folk theory fail to refer altogether (Rorty; Dennett). Stich's thesis is subtler, and rests on the claim that the individuation of folk-psychological states is irremediably vague and context-and-observer relative in a way that makes a folk-psychological taxonomy ill-suited to the requirements of scientific explanation and systematization. Stich, of course, does not reject mentalism as such, as did the behaviorists: he merely rejects the assumption–-often tacitly accepted by cognitive scientists and by their philosophical interpreters–-that the mental states posited by a mature cognitive science will essentially correspond to the intentional, propositional attitude states of folk psychology. Thus, for Stich, there is no reason to suppose that cognitive science will turn out to be a sophisticated extension of folk psychology. The “Panglossian prospect” (p. 5) of a conceptual reunification of the scientific image of mind with the ‘manifest’ image under the banner of cognitivism is just what this book calls into question.

It may seem trivial to state that one of the major trends in biological investigation consists in an attempt to explain the structural and functional aspects of living matter in chemical terms, in an effort to obtain insight into the equivalent of macroscopic phenomena on the molecular level. I am sure you are aware of, and this meeting of the Association has brought ample additional evidence, in how many fields this tendency has become apparent. It can be recognized in genetics with the molecular analysis of chromosomes and the enzymatic or metabolic interpretation of hereditary properties like the eyecolor of Drosophila. In a purely morphological branch like histology we do not ask merely for a differentiation of stained cell structure but we ask for the nature of the staining reaction; in nerve physiology we try to interpret conduction as alterations of protein lipoid layers; or in pathology where the age old syndrome of inflammation is explored with biochemical methods. I should mention molecular models of membranes and cell surfaces, the molecular interpretation of secretion and of the macroscopic phenomena of metabolism. Yet insofar as this yield of data could be designated as a trend, it would rather seem to be the natural outcome to be expected from the application of the analytic method of science. In one instance, however, this approach has been carried farther than in all the other fields, and it would seem to be worthwhile to pause for one moment to ask whether this case is important merely because of its technical implications or whether it is meaningful in a wider sense.

It is to be understood that the philosopher is not the one to query the procedures and the working hypotheses of the physicist. These arise from grappling with technical problems which have arisen historically in his science; and the philosopher seldom has the technical competence to get the concrete feel of the situation and to realize, to the full, the meaning of what is being proposed.

Since my discussion of an experimental arrangement of the sciences for certain practical objectives, some comment has appeared which makes it necessary to re-emphasize certain points by a further example. There seems to be something like a desire to paralyze the hand that makes arrangements for fear that undue profound metaphysical significance may be seen in a “mere” arrangement. It is the perennial fear of the a priori, the fear of a principle being invoked because of its “self-evidence”, and then turning traitor on the actual evidence. I invoke no such principle either overtly or covertly.

In his article “On Mechanical Recognition” ([6]) R. J. Nelson brings to bear a branch of mathematical logic called automata theory on problems of artificial intelligence. Specifically he attacks the anti-mechanist claim that “[i]nasmuch as human recognition to a very great extent relies on context and on the ability to grasp wholes with some independence of the quality of the parts, even to fill in the missing parts on the basis of expectations, it follows that computers cannot in principle be programmed to recognize or learn to recognize all patterns” ([6]), p. 24). Nelson proposes, contrary to this claim, that “gestalt recognition is not beyond digital automata” ([6], p. 24). in particular, he claims, he will establish by what he calls “Turing machine arguments” ([6], p. 25) that the following four theses are true:

1. (1) automata can recognize different pattern types in one and the same set of instances;

2. (2) automata can recognize the “same” pattern in different (even completely disjoint) sets of instances;

3. (3) automata can recognize incomplete, degraded patterns having missing or indeterminate parts;

4. (4) automata can recognize family resemblances. ([6], pp. 24–25)

Does the strength of a particular belief depend upon the significance we attach to it? Do we move from one context to another, remaining in the same doxastic state concerning p yet holding a stronger belief that p in one context than in the other? For that to be so, a doxastic state must have a certain sort of context-sensitive complexity. So the question is about the nature of belief states, as we understand them, or as we think a theory should model them. I explore the idea and how it relates to work on imprecise probabilities and second-order confidence.

When I undertook to write an article for mathematical laymen on the mathematical infinite. I did not realize the depths of my own layness, I do now. Having refreshed my memory of the classics of infinity by re-reading among other things the famous papers of Cantor and Zermelo, and having struggled like a boa constrictor to swallow the latest papal bull on the human significance of the infinite, I am completely reduced to what Professor E. W. Hobson aptly and somewhat indignantly calls Mathematical Nihilism.

1. Confirmation Theory One, which we shall construct, when applied to the Raven Hypothesis yields the following results:

1. (1.1) Any black raven confirms the Raven Hypothesis.

2. (1.2) Any black non-raven confirms the Raven Hypothesis.

3. (2) Any non-black raven disconfirms the Raven Hypothesis.

4. (3) Any non-black non-raven is neutral to the Raven Hypothesis.

Theory One consists of two parts: (A) six basic concepts from confirmation theory proper, and (B) the underlying logic.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, philosophy in America and England began to respond to the rumors of unrest and dissatisfaction which were under way at the close of the nineteenth century. Many contemporary thinkers, who have had occasion to look backward, have remarked on the dominance of idealism at the turn of the period. Montague says it was “rampant” and points to the organization of the St. Louis school by W. T. Harris, the purpose being a study of Hegelian thought. Lovejoy also remembers the total sweep of idealistic thought. “The metaphysics of the philosophical teachers whose influence was dominant in most of the American universities thirty-five years ago had one common and fundamental premise which was supposed to be established beyond the possibility of reasonable doubt; to question it was simply to betray one's want of a genuine initiation into philosophy. It was the proposition that, in Bradley's words, 'to be real, or even barely to exist, is to fall within sentience; sentient experience, in short, is reality, and what is not this is not real. There is no being or fact outside of that which is commonly called psychical existence.' As my first teacher in philosophy, George Holmes Howison, said, in summing up a memorable philosophical symposium in 1895: 'We are all agreed' in one 'great tenet;' which is 'the entire foundation of philosophy itself: the explanation of the world which maintains that the only thing absolutely real is mind; that all material and all temporal existences take their being from Consciousness that thinks and experiences; that out of consciousness they all issue, to the consciousness they are presented, and that presence to consciousness constitutes their entire reality.' With almost a whole generation of acute and powerful minds this passed for a virtual axiom.”

The following comments represent what seem to me promising lines of approach to some of the broader issues in the philosophy of logic. They are offered, it is perhaps unnecessary to say, with the intent of stimulating rather than foreclosing discussion. And if the conclusions advanced are formulated loosely and with only a crude indication of the arguments which support them, I hope that thereby they will provoke all the more the free flow of discourse which it is the object of this Conference to promote.

During the past half-century the patterns of publication in science have undergone radical change. A vast increment has occurred in the amount of scientific writing. And scientific findings are increasingly being disseminated through “non-traditional” publishing media such as mimeographing and microfilming. These two interrelated trends have had some notable effects upon science. 1. With the rapid increase in the number of publications the problem of maintaining continuity in science has become acute; the traditional scientific social structure seems quite incapable of accomplishing this vital task. 2. An extensive organization is developing which seeks to provide the desired continuity, but its very existence poses dilemmas for the traditional scientific order. 3. Moreover, the changing publication patterns seem to be intensifying the “schisms” between the theoretician and the specialized researcher. 4. They are also challenging the older standards for evaluating scientists. We thus hypothesize that the volume and form of communication is a significant variable inducing modifications in the scientific social system. This theoretical orientation has in part been suggested by Harold Innis (7) who, however, was concerned with broader systems—i.e., civilizations. The following analysis should point up some little-considered problems inherent in the research process.

Present-day logic regards definitions as syntactical devices of abbreviation. This view, summed up in the terse adage: “To define is to eliminate,” obscures the vital part played by definitions in deductive sciences. Abstract calculi, to become noetic tools, must be interpreted; so the richer the interpretation, the more efficient the tool. But most calculi are based on a restricted number of primitives; they thus embrace, at the outset, a restricted number of concepts and can be appraised through and only through the definitions they eventually yield. In a word, the richness of a calculus lies in its defining virtualities. The whole of PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA would be a futile game of chess, did it not embody all our mathematical concepts; none of these being assumed as primitive, PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA owes its momentous significance to its definitions and to its definitions only.