The relationship between economics and the philosophy of natural science has changed substantially during the last few years. What was once exclusively a one-way relationship from philosophy to economics now seems to be much closer to bilateral exchange. The purpose of this paper is to examine this new relationship. First, I document the change. Second, I examine the situation within contemporary philosophy of science in order to explain why economics might have its current appeal. Third, I consider some of the issues that might jeopardize the success of this philosophical project.

The distinction between cognitive and perceptual theories of emotion is entrenched in the literature on emotion and is openly used by individual emotion theorists when classifying their own theories and those of others. In this paper, I argue that the distinction between cognitive and perceptual theories of emotion is more pernicious than it is helpful, while at the same time insisting that there are nonetheless important perceptual and cognitive factors in emotion that need to be distinguished. A general representational metatheoretical framework for reconciling cognitive and perceptual theories is proposed. This is the Representational Theory of Emotion (RTE). A detailed case study of Antonio Damasio's important new contribution to emotion theory is presented in defense of the RTE. The paper is intended for readers interested in the foundations of emotion theory and cognitive science.

N. Maxwell (1985) has claimed that special relativity and “probabilism” are incompatible; “probabilism” he defines as the doctrine that “the universe is such that, at any instant, there is only one past but many alternative possible futures”. Thus defined, the doctrine is evidently prerelativistic as it depends on the notion of a universal instant of the universe. In this note I show, however, that there is a straightforward relativistic generalization, and that therefore Maxwell's conclusion that the special theory of relativity should be amended is unwarranted. I leave open the question whether or not probabilism (or the related doctrine of the flow of time) is true, but argue that the special theory of relativity has no fundamental significance for this question.

In a number of recent papers I have been developing the theory of “nomic probability,“ which is supposed to be the kind of probability involved in statistical laws of nature. One of the main principles of this theory is an acceptance rule explicitly designed to handle the lottery paradox. This paper shows that the rule can also handle the paradox of the preface. The solution proceeds in part by pointing out a surprising connection between the paradox of the preface and the gambler's fallacy.

Scientific method interests the linguist not only as it interests every scientific worker, but also in a special way, because the scientist, as part of his method, utters certain very peculiar speech-forms. The linguist naturally divides scientific activity into two phases: the scientist performs “handling” actions (observation, collecting of specimens, experiment) and utters speech (report, classification, hypothesis, prediction). The speech-forms which the scientist utters are peculiar both in their form and in their effect upon hearers.

John Norton has recently argued that Newtonian gravitation theory (at least as applied to cosmological contexts where one envisions the possibility of a homogeneous mass distribution throughout all of space) is inconsistent. I am not convinced. Traditional formulations of the theory may seem to break down in cases of the sort Norton considers. But the difficulties they face are only apparent. They are artifacts of the formulations themselves, and disappear if one passes to the so-called “geometrized” formulation of the theory.

Chance Neutrality is the thesis that, conditional on some proposition being true (or being false), its chance of being true should be a matter of practical indifference. The aim of this article is to examine whether Chance Neutrality is a requirement of rationality. We prove that given Chance Neutrality, the Principal Principle entails a thesis called Linearity; the centerpiece of von Neumann and Morgenstern’s expected utility theory. With this in mind, we argue that the Principal Principle is a requirement of practical rationality but that Linearity is not and, hence, that Chance Neutrality is not rationally required.

Much controversy surrounds the question of what ought to be the proper definition of ‘singularity’ in general relativity, and the question of whether the prediction of such entities leads to a crisis for the theory. I argue that a definition in terms of curve incompleteness is adequate, and in particular that the idea that singularities correspond to ‘missing points’ has insurmountable problems. I conclude that singularities per se pose no serious problem for the theory, but their analysis does bring into focus several problems of interpretation at the foundation of the theory often ignored in the philosophical literature.

We appeal to the theory of Bayesian Networks to model different strategies for obtaining confirmation for a hypothesis from experimental test results provided by less than fully reliable instruments. In particular, we consider (i) repeated measurements of a single test consequence of the hypothesis, (ii) measurements of multiple test consequences of the hypothesis, (iii) theoretical support for the reliability of the instrument, and (iv) calibration procedures. We evaluate these strategies on their relative merits under idealized conditions and show some surprising repercussions on the variety-of-evidence thesis and the Duhem-Quine thesis.

Scientific realism is the position that success of a scientific theory licenses an inference to its approximate truth. The argument from pessimistic metainduction maintains that this inference is undermined due to the existence of theories from the history of science that were successful but false. I aim to counter pessimistic metainduction and defend scientific realism. To do this, I adopt a notion of success that admits of degrees and show that our current best theories enjoy far higher degrees of success than any of the successful but refuted theories of the past.

Psychiatry’s failure to validate its diagnostic constructs is often attributed to the prioritizing of reliability over validity in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). I argue that a more powerful way in which the DSM has retarded biomedical progress is by encouraging unwarranted optimism about diagnostic discrimination: the assumption that our diagnostic tests group patients together in ways that allow for relevant facts about mental disorder to be discovered. I argue that the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework, a new paradigm for classifying objects of psychiatric research, solves some of the challenges brought on by this assumption.

It is a commonplace in the analytic geometry of physical space-time that an extended straight line segment, having positive length, is treated as “consisting of” unextended points, each of which has zero length. Analogously, time intervals of positive duration are resolved into instants, each of which has zero duration.

This discussion recounts the development of several anthropological definitions of human nature. It then examines conclusions of studies in other disciplines that make possible a revised empirical definition of human nature and which have led to reexamination of paleoanthropological data classed as unimportant under the rubrics of precceding studies. Finally, this discussion appraises certain of these data, as they pertain to the question: “Do empirical evidences suggest that a human nature, as well as a human structure, may be the product of evolutionary processes ?”

In “The Indeterministic Character of Evolutionary Theory: No ‘Hidden Variables Proof’ But No Room for Determinism Either,” Brandon and Carson (1996) argue that evolutionary theory is statistical because the processes it describes are fundamentally statistical. In “Is Indeterminism the Source of the Statistical Character of Evolutionary Theory?” Graves, Horan, and Rosenberg (1999) argue in reply that the processes of evolutionary biology are fundamentally deterministic and that the statistical character of evolutionary theory is explained by epistemological rather than ontological considerations. In this paper I focus on the topic of mutation. By focusing on some of the theory and research on this topic from early to late, I show how quantum indeterminism hooks up to point mutations (via tautomeric shifts, proton tunneling, and aqueous thermal motion). I conclude with a few thoughts on some of the wider implications of this topic.

Realists have responded to challenges from the historical record of successful but ultimately rejected theories with what I call the selective confirmation strategy: arguing that only idle parts of past theories have been rejected, while truly success-generating features have been confirmed by further inquiry. I argue first, that this strategy is unconvincing without some prospectively applicable criterion of idleness for theoretical posits, and second, that existing efforts to provide one either convict all theoretical posits of idleness (Kitcher) or stand refuted by detailed consideration of the very examples (optical/electromagnetic ether, caloric fluid) to which they appeal (Psillos). I also argue that available avenues for improving on these proposals are unpromising.

This article develops and defends a new functional approach to scientific progress. I begin with a review of the problems of the traditional functional approach. Then I propose a new functional account of scientific progress, in which scientific progress is defined in terms of usefulness of problem defining and problem solving. I illustrate and defend my account by applying it to the history of genetics. Finally, I highlight the advantages of my new functional approach over the epistemic and semantic approaches and dismiss some potential objections to my approach.

Recently, biologists have argued that data-driven biology fosters a new scientific methodology, namely, one that is irreducible to traditional methodologies of molecular biology defined as the discovery strategies elucidated by mechanistic philosophy. Here I show how data-driven studies can be included in the traditional mechanistic approach in two respects. On the one hand, some studies provide eliminative inferential procedures to prioritize and develop mechanistic hypotheses. On the other, different studies play an exploratory role in providing useful generalizations to complement the procedure of prioritization. Overall, this article aims to shed light on the structure of contemporary research in molecular biology.

Motor imagery typically involves an experience as of moving a body part. Recent studies reveal close parallels between the constraints on motor imagery and those on actual motor performance. How are these parallels to be explained? We advance a simulative theory of motor imagery, modeled on the idea that we predict and explain the decisions of others by simulating their decision-making processes. By proposing that motor imagery is essentially off-line motor action, we explain the tendency of motor imagery to mimic motor performance. We close by arguing that a simulative theory of motor imagery gives (modest) support to and illumination of the simulative theory of decision-prediction.

The aim of this article is to analyze the role of the distinction between principle and constructive theories in the question of the explanatory power of special relativity. We show how the distinction breaks down at the explanatory level. We assess Harvey Brown's claim that, as a principle theory, special relativity lacks explanatory power. We argue that this claim is based on an unrealistic picture of the kind of explanations provided by principle (and constructive) theories. Finally, we argue that the structural account of explanation captures the explanatory success of special relativity.

In theories of the mobilities of ions in gases a rather precise knowledge is required of the forces which are called into play when an ion approaches a neutral molecule; for it is by virtue of these forces that ions are deflected from their paths and that their drift along the electric force is impeded. Again, the current question whether ions, in their motion through a gas, form “clusters”, that is, whether they surround themselves by one or even more layers of neutral molecules, can be decided theoretically only on the basis of a rather precise knowledge of the interactions.