I have organized my remarks about randomizing under four headings: computation, communication, causal Inference, and complexity. It Is hard to think of a wore controversial subject than that of randomization. My remarks are simpler and more extreme than they ought to be. I have put them in a rather bald and definite way in order to draw the lines more sharply and to make my message as clear as possible. I do not doubt that under extended debate it would be necessary to qualify some of the things I have to say, but I would insist on the point that I would be offering qualifications, not retractions.

It is often said by pure Bayesians that once the likelihood function is available knowledge of any randomization scheme used is superfluous Information. It seems to me that this argument misses an Important point which I want to illustrate by a simple artificial example.

Along with the notion that DNA is at the bottom of things biological, goes the notion that molecular genetics is on top. That is, along with the notion that DNA is the informational basis of life, goes the notion that the deepest explanations in biology are molecular-genetic. But even if the former notion is correct, the latter is not. More specifically; the molecular-genetic perspective alone is inappropriate for explaining those biological generalities that call out instead for an evolutionary account. Moreover, the molecular-genetic accounts that are brought to bear upon biological generalities are often themselves subject to evolutionary scrutiny in the final analysis. I cannot entirely rule out the possibility of an explanation of a biological generality that is, in the final analysis, molecular-genetic and nonevolutionary. I am, in this regard, in somewhat the position of the natural historian.

Despite continuing controversy over the detailed structure of the biological theory of evolution, and the scientific credentials of some of its central principles (see Goudge (1961), Peters (1976), Smart (1963), Williams (1970)), its striking success in explaining the development of living things has frequently inspired attempts to apply it beyond the biological domain (for example, Mach (1910) and White (1949)). Recently attempts have been made to explain the historical development of human concepts and ideas in terms of a Darwinian evolutionary theory. Various theories of “evolutionary epistemology” have been proposed by Stephen Toulmin (1972), Donald Campbell (1974), and Nicholas Rescher (1977), to name a few. In order to assess these theories adequately it would be useful to know in a general fashion under what circumstances and in what form’ a Darwinian evolutionary theory should be employed within non-biological domains.

A recurrent theme in the “new philosophy of science” is the importance of temporally extended conceptual entities termed variously disciplinary matrixes (Kuhn 1970), research programs (Lakatos 1970), scientific disciplines (Toulmin 1972), theories (McMullin 1976), and research traditions (Laudan 1977). Each of these macro-conceptual entities contains a rich heterogeneity of constituent elements. For example, Kuhn's (1970, pp. 183-187) disciplinary matrixes (“paradigm” in his global sense) include symbolic generalizations, metaphysical views, models, values, and exemplars as concrete problem solutions (“paradigm” in the narrow sense). All of the conceptual entities listed above are “historical entities” or “continuants”, the sorts of things that can change through time. Toulmin (1972) and Laudan (1977) permit total changeover in elements just so long as the transformation is gradual and the system remains cohesive in the process. Others, such as Lakatos (1970), insist on the retention of a “hard core” of some kind.

There have been many responses to Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, but none of them have said why philosophers should be assigned a unique set of offices within the halls of academe rather than simply be distributed among the offices already provided for practicioners of the special disciplines (which, after the German Wissenschaften, will henceforth be referred to as the “sciences”)—with logicians situated among the mathematicians, epistemologlsts among the psychologists, and so forth. And ultimately the challenge of Rorty's book boils down to this bureaucratic question. We may not be convinced by his story of how philosophers, starting with Descartes and Locke, unwittingly came to raise the sciences of their day to the status of metaphysics. Nor may we find very illuminating his suggestion that philosophers now join the ranks of cultural critics.

Taxonomy is not destiny. In the context of scientific theories, it is explanation rather than taxonomy which should play the leading role. (The domain of any theory consists not of mere items—as in philately or genealogy—but of phenomena.) Unless biological taxonomy is guided by underlying theory—presumably, evolutionary theory, genetics, and molecular biology—systematics risks degenerating into mere genealogy.

David Hull believes that certain taxa employed in history of science should be conceived on the model of biological species. He first discusses the nature of species, indicating (in 1.) what they are not— they are not “natural kinds“—and then (in 2.) what they are—i.e., they are “historical entities”, “chunks of the genealogical nexus” which are individuated in relation to some arbitrarily selected and quite often atypical “type specimen”. The connection between the two points, the negative and the positive, is that conspecificity is determined by actual spatiotemporal contacts of the sort required by descent, rather than by any putative similarities among conspecific organisms.

Was Carnap a complete verificationist in the Aufbau? The question is asked in the precise sense which has been standard since 1936 in the work of such classical writers as Carnap, Hempel and Scheffler. It is not an idle question because many, if not most, writers including Carnap himself have thought that he was such a verificationist in the Aufbau. Moreover, it is generally agreed that verificationism in this sense is a serious mistake. I propose to argue that the Aufbau does not in fact embrace such a verificationism and to base my argument on evidence directly from the Aufbau and surrounding documents.

Since 1936 ‘verificationism’ has been standardly used in the sense of a theory of empirical meaningfulness according to which a statement is meaningful if and only if it is possible that there be evidence that we might actually obtain which would conclusively establish the statement as true.

The thesis of this paper is that perception is intelligent in that it is based on the same kinds of operations that characterize thought. However, the dependence of perception on sensory information makes for certain differences between it and “higher” cognitive functions such as imagination and thinking. Clearly the phenomenal experience of a percept is different from that of thought. Still the processes underlying these different mental end products may be quite similar. Although we know little about the nature of thought, a demonstration that perception results from cognitve operations does constitute an explanation. Others seek to explain perception in very different ways.

To turn the problem around so to speak, it is entirely possible that thinking evolved from perception. Perception might be the evolutionary link between low level sensory processes that mediated simple detection of environmental changes in phylogenetically primitive organisms and high level cognitve processes.

The cognitive interest in metaphor and simile derives from a conceptual detour: through these figures we regard one thing in terms of another, and in so doing our understanding of the first is modified in light of perspective gained by the second.

But why, in terms of cognitive gain, engage in such conceptual detours? That is, what motivates our use of metaphor and simile? The motivation of metaphor has often been thought to be the assertion of asimilarity amongst things generally not thought to be similar. However, as Max Black pointed out in criticizing the “comparison theory of metaphor”, metaphors are not simple comparisons of “objectively given” similarities, wherein to the question “is A like B in respect of P?” we might have a definite answer.

Many philosophers interested in problems of scientific progress—what it is and whether it is possible—have in recent years, and with good reason, focused on the challenges directed by Kuhn (1962) and Feyerabend (1975) to the traditional belief in progress by accretion. I have argued (in response to Feyerabend's proliferation theory) that the proper locus for a solution to these problems must be the social (or what I prefer to call the “material”) conditions in which proposed competing theories must exist (Goldman 1980)). Recently, Gonzalo Munévar has proposed similar criteria in his book Radical Knowledge (1981). Our approaches have much in common. Most importantly they eschew the wholly “intellectual” criteria offered by almost all philosophers; that is, criteria which focus entirely on a theory's ability to solve problems arising only in thought (whether they be called ‘conceptual’ or ‘empirical’ problems).

Here is one way to portray the history of research on the visual system. It consists of a rivalry between those who discern the benchmarks of intelligence in visual perception, and those who seek to show how the appearance of intelligence can be stripped away to reveal the reality of essential stupidity. In the main the rivalry has been exciting and productive, as the two egg each other on to ever more extreme exertions; that is to exhibit demonstrations of ever more cunning ways in which stupid elements can be wired and assembled to yield smart looking results, and by reply, to exhibit demonstrations of ever more subtle and striking performances of the visual system which betoken intelligence and defy reduction by existing reductive hypotheses. The demonstrations of intelligence have typically come from behavioral experiments concerning, for example, illusory contours, and constancy in such things as size.perception and orientation perception.

The controversy over inference in perception turns on the nature of the processes that intervene between the stimulus.and the perceptual experience or percept. For those who find it useful to conceptualize such matters in boxological shorthand, the dispute can be viewed as focusing on the contents of the box in Figure 1. (Figures will be found at the end of the paper.)

Gibsonians have stressed the informational richness of the stimulus and have argued that in virtue of that informational richness no complex inferential processes must be postulated in the box. Rather, the perceptual mechanism can be thought of as “picking up” or “resonating to” the information in the stimulus. But, of course, the suggestion that the perceptual system can pick up information “directly” from the stimulus does not really speak to the issue of what is in the box.

It was with some trepidation that I agreed to speak today, because of a strong doubt that I could say anything substantial not already to be found in the literature of the subject. I cannot say that this trepidation has been subsequently relieved: all I can claim to offer in this paper is a review of certain basic characteristics or themes in the quantum-mechanical situation (which by now should, I think, be thoroughly understood by everyone engaged with the matter), supplemented by some rather general reflections on our philosophical predicament. In aid of these more general reflections, I shall indulge a proclivity for calling on historical matters—some fairly recent, some older, some ancient—which I hope may serve to place current issues in a useful perspective; and I ask your forgiveness for allowing myself to quote certain previous, but hitherto unpublished, remarks of my own.

Allow me to begin by thanking Professor Nickles for his organizing the session on “Technology and Scientific change” in order, as he wrote me in his kind letter of invitation to participate in this session, to explore ways in which technological developments have stimulated or obstructed scientific change. I take it there is no established list of ways in which technological progress stimulates scientific progress, yet some ways are all too obvious. The simplest, perhaps, are the cases of the technological progress which facilitate the life of the scientist, the technological progress which makes more free time available, some of which is used for scientific education and research, the innumerable technological advances which raise the standard of living in myriads of ways, and which help science grow in all sorts of manners. I suppose these are the indirect ways.

As was remarked two years ago at a symposium of the PSA on locality and hidden variables (Shimony 1981), the Bell theorems together with experiments supporting the quantum correlations (violating the inequalities of the theorems) provide a rather remarkable opportunity for philosophy. Shimony summed this up in the nice phrase, “experimental metaphysics”. For, as he pointed out, arguments based on Bell-type theorems, concluding that certain experiments should exhibit correlations obeying a certain inequality, generally employ premises of a metaphysical character, e.g., that the systems in question are deterministic (in the experimental observables). If, in fact, the experimental predictions are violated, and if one has reason to believe any other premises involved, then one must give up the metaphysical hypothesis.

The purpose of this paper is to present a local solution to the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky (E.P.R.) paradox by way of a mechanical analogue (roulette) and then to note some of its consequences for the foundations of mathematics and probability theory. The detailed mathematical development of the model involves some highly specialized fields in mathematics (set theory, measure theory and group theory). My intention is to avoid these technicalities as much as possible. A complete account that includes proofs and application to physics is in Pitowsky (1982a, 1982b, 1983). Some mathematics is, however, indispensable. I shall denote by x,y,z,w unit vectors in the three dimensional Euclidean Space. If x,y are unit vectors, is the (small) angle between x and y so that 0 ≤ ≤ Π.

The language of thought hypothesis is this: central among the causes of our behavior are inner states with linguistic structure that play roughly the role we pre-scientifically ascribe to our beliefs and desires. A philosophical thesis has been proposed on the basis of that scientific hypothesis- namely, that the way to explicate commonsense notions of the content of beliefs and desires, of their intentionality, is in terms of the meaning of such internal sentences. I am going to compare this explicative strategy with a certain functionalist theory of propositional attitudes, on which propositional attitude ascriptions of the form ‘x believes (desires) that —’ are explicatively more fundamental than anything linguistic and semantic. This is a modern dress version of an old dispute; but the issue is not between the naturalistic proponent of linguistic meaning and the antinaturalistic proponent of irreducible intentionality.