Philosophers who hold that the correct ontological analysis of things includes both properties and particulars have often been pressed to “show” the particular. If we are not acquainted with them, it is argued, then we should not suppose that they exist. I argue that, while we do have good and sufficient reasons for supposing there to be particulars, we are not acquainted with them. To suppose that we are acquainted with them is to treat particulars as if they were properties and to fail to realize how radically different particulars are from properties. The relevance of these matters to some considerations of “simplicity” and the principles of empiricism is explored.

The Facts of Causation claims to be a “complete account of causation and its implications.” Mellor's concern is with singular causation; that is, where causes and effects are singular (he takes general causation to be a generalization concerning singular causation (pp. 6–7)). Singular causes and effects come in two sorts. Firstly, there are facts. Facts are actual states of affairs, and states of affairs correlate with whatever can be expressed in a sentence (so facts correlate with whatever can be expressed in a true sentence) (8–9). For example, that Don falls and that Don dies are facts, if actual. In general terms, the causation of one fact, E, by another, C, fits under the designation ‘E, because C’.

Symmetry principles are a central part of contemporary physics, yet there has been surprisingly little metaphysical work done on them. This article develops the Wignerian treatment of symmetries as higher-order laws—metalaws—within a Humean framework of lawhood. Lange has raised two obstacles to Humean metalaws, and the article shows that the account has the resources available to respond to both. It is argued that this framework for Humean metalaws stands as an example of naturalistic metaphysics, able to bring Humeanism into contact with the practice of actual science without giving up on the central denial of necessary connections.

Opening Remarks of the Chairman at “Wesley C. Salmon, 1925–2001”: A Symposium Honoring his Contributions to the Philosophy of Science.

Peter Railton (1978) has introduced the influential deductive-nomological-probabilistic (DNP) model of explanation which is the culmination of a tradition of formal, non-pragmatic accounts of scientific explanation. The other models in this tradition have been shown to be susceptible to a class of counterexamples involving intervening causes which speak against their sufficiency. This treatment has never been extended to the DNP model; we contend that the usual form of these counterexamples is ineffective in this case. However, we develop below a new version which overcomes these difficulties. Thus we claim that all of the models in this tradition, DNP included, have an equal status with respect to sufficiency.

Although our theories are not precisely true, scientific realists contend that we should admit their objects into our ontology. One justification—offered by Sellars and Putnam—is that current theories belong to series that converge to ideally adequate theories. I consider the way the commitment to convergence reflects on the interpretation of lawlike claims. I argue that the distinction between lawlike and accidental generalizations depends on our cognitive interests and reflects our commitment to the direction of scientific progress. If the sciences disagree about the lawlikeness of some generalization(s), as an argument of Davidson's suggests, it follows from the interest relatively of lawlikeness that the laws of a science do not determine the essences of their objects. I conclude that this form of scientific realism provides no metaphysical support for essentialism.

The status of a causal approach to EPR-Bell nonlocal correlations in terms of a counterfactual framework for causation is considered. It is argued that when the relativistic spacetime structure of the events is taken into due account, the adoption of this approach is best motivated by the assumption of a preferred frame of reference, an assumption that seems even more in need of justification than the causal theory itself.

Early sections of the paper develop a view of the natural numbers and a view of counting which are suggested by the remarks of several modern philosophers. Further investigation of these views leads to one of the main theses of the paper : a special kind of quantifier, the “numerical quantifier” is essential to counting. The remainder of the paper suggests the rudiments of a new view of the natural numbers, a view which maintains that numerical quantifiers are one kind of natural number.

Larry Laudan's primary aim in his latest book, Science and Values, is to account for the high degree of agreement and the ubiquity of disagreement in science. Arguing that earlier philosophers have either concentrated on agreement and ignored disagreement or highlighted disagreement at the expense of agreement, he sets out to provide “a single, unified theory of rationality which promises to be able to explain both these striking features of science” (p. 3). However, while recognizing that Laudan has done much to clarify this issue and to bring traditional thinking about science into line with scientific practice, I shall argue that the basic problem remains to be solved. To do justice to agreement and disagreement, we must pursue a more radical course than the one Laudan charts.

The purpose of my remarks is to draw some conclusions about the conditions which must be realized if physical, biological and social scientists are to work effectively in reaching common goals. I shall draw these conclusions on the basis of my experience as a psychologist whose participation in the war effort found him a member of a team composed principally of physicists and research engineers. I may say that while my experiences were largely at the level of the lower echelons of the working fraternity, the conclusions appear to me to have application without regard to the extent of the brass which, in a figurative sense, decorates the scientist's hat.

The psychofunctionalist claim that psychological terms can be defined through the use of an experimental theory has been criticized on the grounds that it is “chauvinistic“: that it denies mentality to any creature of which the selected theory is false. I analyze the “argument from science fiction” that is thought to establish this conclusion, and show that its plausibility rests on a scope ambiguity in formulations of functional definitions. One formulation is indeed chauvinistic, but an alternative rendering is not, and is perfectly consistent with ascribing mentality to creatures of which the selected psychological theory is false. This alternative interpretation of psychofunctionalism is set out in detail, defended from several objections, and finally tied to the semantics of ordinary language psychological terms.

In this paper we attempt to formulate logical foundations for a theory of actions or performance. Human beings act in various ways, and their actions are intimately interrelated with their use of language. But precisely how actions and the use of language are interrelated is not very clear. One of the reasons is perhaps that we have no precise vocabulary in terms of which such interrelations may be handled. There is need for developing a systematic theory in which different kinds of actions may be discussed, contrasted, and compared. Then the various interrelations between actions and linguistic usage may perhaps be discussed rather more carefully and thoroughly than heretofore.

Although much important preliminary work has been done in the analysis of actions, no one it seems has attempted to develop a strict logical theory for such analysis. A few tentative and programmatic steps were taken in the author's Toward a Systematic Pragmatics.1 Let us attempt here to improve those and take a few more. Any first attempts of this kind are of course fraught with difficulties. There inevitably will be some oversimplification or some overelaboration here or there. Ultimately of course we are interested in interrelating performance with various notions from syntax, semantics, and quantitative pragmatics.2 But this is not easy and only a few tentative suggestions toward such a development can be given here.

In § 1 the distinction between action-kinds and action-events is drawn, and the character of the primitive or primitives needed for the theory of performance is discussed. In § 2 some further notions are then defined. Certain Rules of Performance are suggested in § 3. In § 4 there is discussion of the somewhat tenuous notion of acceptance as a basis for action. In § 5 the fundamental notions required for Parsons and Shils’ theory of social action is discussed briefly. In § 6 we attempt to define the two basic notions required in Leonard's recent papers concerning authorship and purpose. Finally, in § 7, the theory of performance is interrelated with von Wright's deontic logic, in which such notions as permission and obligation are considered.

One gains the impression from occasional remarks in the psychiatric literature that there is a feeling of dissatisfaction with the state of flux of the various concepts, serving as tools to help us understand our patients. This paper is submitted as an attempt to point out some of the reasons why psychiatric notions suffer from certain deficiencies. If, for the time being, we set aside the specific psychiatric problems confronting us in our daily work and muse over the structure of our psychological and psychiatric methods of explanation, we might come to the startling conclusion that these methods are quite inadequate. We medical people think in terms of the mechanistic natural sciences, particularly in terms of physics, chemistry and biochemistry. The importance of these auxiliary sciences to our art of healing the sick increases year after year and the outstanding results of chemotherapy, for instance, show how heavily our profession leans on chemistry. Beyond a doubt, the natural sciences are essential to the pursuit and the development of the practice of medicine, nevertheless, the question arises whether psychiatry should be based upon mechanistic methods in approaching our specific material, the human mind. Posed in this fashion, the question implies that psychiatric thinking is basically mechanistic in its general characteristics. I believe that one can prove this thesis on the premise that descriptions and explanations of human behavior are based upon neurological facts and theories. Since the purpose of neurology lies in a different direction than the goal of psychiatry, it was necessary to alter neurological concepts so that they would be more appropriate and fitting to psychic material, and this elaboration upon neurological principles when applied to mental phenomena leads to psychiatric conceptions with inherent deficiencies.

If physicalism is true (e.g., if every event is a fundamental-physical event), then it looks as if there is a fundamental-physical explanation of everything. If so, then what is to become of special scientific explanations? They seem to be excluded by the fundamental-physical ones, and indeed to be excellent candidates for elimination. I argue that, if physicalism is true, there probably is a fundamental-physical explanation of everything, but that nevertheless there can perfectly well be special scientific explanations as well, notwithstanding eliminativist scruples concerning overdetermination and Ockham's Razor.