Kevin Elliott: A Tapestry of Values: An Introduction to Values in Science
Review of: Kevin Elliott: A Tapestry of Values: An Introduction to Values in Science Oxford University Press, 2017, 208 pages
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Review of: Kevin Elliott: A Tapestry of Values: An Introduction to Values in Science Oxford University Press, 2017, 208 pages
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This paper argues for a different interpretation of Roberval’s scepticism in his Aristarchi Samii de mundi systemate. Roberval’s mild sceptical attitude, along with his fake attribution of hiscosmological treatise to the ancient Aristarchus of Samos, are explained by prudential reasons related to censure. I will instead provide a more internalist reading. There are deeper metaphysical and epistemological reasons for Roberval’s pessimism about the prospect of a perfect science of celestial motions, as well as for his (non-realistic) acceptance of heliocentrism as just a more plausible system than Ptolemy’s or Tycho’s. I start by spelling out two distinct sceptical worries conflated in the Aristarchi. The first is a general agnosticism regarding certainty about the causes of the motions of the heavens—it is more of a worry that the true system of the world can never be known. The second is a particular pessimism regarding the prospects of improving astronomy. The same effect (the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies) can be produced by diverse causes. Judging by what seemed to be the most probable physical causes of the heavenly motions, Roberval saw no reason for the existence of a precisely predictable regularity in heavenly motions. Both sceptical attitudes have to do, aside from the cosmology of the Aristarchi, with the theory of science he expounds in his private Principes du debvoir et des cognoissances humaine, and in a fragment he wrote for Mersenne’s Curiouse perspective de Niceron.
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This article argues that all economic theory presupposes implicit political premises, and that these affect its scientific conclusions. More specifically, I will argue that neoclassical economics trades the epistemic values of predictive accuracy and explanatory strength for an image of the capitalist economy as sustainable, which renders it unequipped to analyze its crises. Echoing Anwar Shaikh’s analysis, I will show that neoclassical economics, by constructing idealized settings and misleading metrics, obscures the inherent conflicts of capital accumulation. As this tendency leads to an incomplete understanding of the current system, I will argue that neoclassical economics cannot inform effective economic policy. To explain the difference between epistemic and non-epistemic values, I will begin with a brief historical overview of the role of values in science. I will then, by analyzing economic metrics and the basic assumption of perfect competition, proceed to show that neoclassical economics is both empirically and logically underdetermined. Once I have shown there is no epistemic argument in favor of neoclassical economics, I will argue that this choice of theoretical framework was mandated by underlying political concerns. I will end by discussing the relationship between engaged philosophy and public policy in times of crisis.
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The aim of this paper is attempt to show the postmodern opening in the Polish ethnology. On the one hand, the text shows that the character of “Polish” postmodernism was shaped over the course of the accelerated reception of theory and concepts formulated in international anthropology two decades earlier. On the other hand, the article stresses that postmodernism – understood as a condition of socio-cultural reality, but also as a general context of the trends and currents of thought arising from the criticism of negatively valued modernism – sharpened and delineated intuitions and trends, as well as existing theories. This postmodern opening, which took place in anthropology at the ontological, epistemological and meta-discursive levels, covered not only the anthropological literature, but also had an impact on the rethinking of field research and on the related research practices. This was also an important stimulus for “self-reporting” in anthropology, which proved to be a significant development not only for increasing the self-awareness of researchers, but also for redefining their proposed cognition.
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The scientific works of Milan Brdar, dedicated to scientific and philosophical criticism, are analyzed in this paper. Brdar starts from the fact that in a technologically and politically changed society, scientific thought about society must take new paths. Instead of a critical theory of society, the new paradigm, in his opinion, is critical rationalism. Also, the term “daily engaged science” is considered. In that part of his scientific work, Brdar demonstrates how one thinks scientifically about current political events.
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W roku 1990 na łamach „Pamiętnika Literackiego” (z. 4) ukazał się szkic Zofi i Mitosek zatytułowany Od dzieła do rękopisu. O francuskiej krytyce genetycznej, będący znakomitym, syntetycznym zarysem szkoły badawczej, istniejącej wówczas od lat około dwudziestu, a zajmującej się – najogólniej rzecz ujmując – próbą opisania i zrozumienia procesu tekstotwórczego przez analizę jego materialnych śladów, takich jak plany utworów, notatki i bruliony, przechowywane w archiwach pracy pisarskiej. Widziany z perspektywy roku 2019 artykuł Zofi i Mitosek ujawnia swój „przełomowy” czy „zwrotny” charakter.
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The first part of the study is based on historical genetics. It examines the issues of the page over a long period of time and places it within the evolution of a written culture. In light of this past, the second part off ers an integrated view of functions whose sequence creates the possibility of a genesis: a manipulable material object – a medium at the interface of thought and trace – a unit that measures the writing stages – a space where words and graphics interfere with the production of meaning. The conclusion points to another dimension of history: the future.
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The article is devoted to the phenomenon of “collaborative creative process,” understood as cooperation between more than one causal subject. Various historical examples of co-creativity are considered, starting from the situation in which the author takes into account the advice of a proofreader to the formal co-creation of two (or more) writers. Reflection on the collaborative specifity of the creative process goes beyond literary issues, referring also to the specificity of other arts, especially architecture.
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This article regards the possibility of applying genetic criticism methods to the analysis of philosophical manuscripts. The cases mentioned include manuscripts by Friedrich Nietzsche, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Arthur Schopenhauer.
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We give a constructive account of the frequentist approach to probability, by means of natural density. Then we discuss some probabilistic variants of the Limited Principle of Omniscience.
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The main purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate that as early as 1904 pre-eminent American mathematician Maxime Bôcher was an adherent to the presently relevant argument of reasonableness, or even necessity of parallel development of two philosophical methods of reflection on mathematics, so that its essence could be more fully comprehended. The goal of the research gives rise to the question: what two types of philosophical deliberation on mathematics were proposed by Bôcher?
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The paper presents the methodology of effective theories as a strategy used in the process of development of modern physics to reach a final theory. We present the definition and characteristic features of an effective theory, as well as the answer to the question of whether and what kind of scenario of reaching a final theory is realized by contemporary physics. We argue that the process of development of physics in the direction of a final theory is potentially final, i.e. expressible in the conceptual schema of effective theories and as such it is convergent to a final theory. In each effective theory there are physical constants, however, whose status differs from logical constants. They have a dimension (length, energy, etc.) and are used to compare physical quantities. The structure of relevant effective theory can be interpreted in the epistemological framework of approximated truth theory. In the case study of cosmological models, the sequence of models is convergent to potentially true model. The Standard Cosmological Model is the theory of the structure and dynamics of the Universe.
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One of the main problems of modern rationalistic theories of science is the non-eliminability of the subjective factor in the development of science. Temperate rationalism of Newton-Smith was an attempt to solve this problem. J. Życiński developed his own version of temperate rationalism in which the subjective factor played much more substantial role. In the article I am presenting his specific idea of the personal commitment as a necessary condition for rationalism and science. In the first section I proceed to reconstruct ˙ Życiński’s argument leading him to the conclusion of this epistemological necessity. Next in the section 2 I present his idea of the epistemological uncertainty principle as a consequence of the subjective commitment. In sections 3 and 4 I explore axiological and pragmatic aspects of the Życiński solution. Finally, in the section 5 I do compare his temperate rationalism with Newton-Smith’s proposal in the context of the Polanyi’s idea of personal knowledge showing differences in their respective approach to the role of the subjective factor in science and rationalism.
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The aim of this paper is to present the views of one of prominent Polish chemists, namely Bohdan Szyszkowski. Presented views are concerning the relation of the concepts of aether, continuity and causality in the context of revolution in physics that took place at the turn of 19th and 20th centuries. The issues particularly concern his thoughts related to the old quantum theory and special relativity. In particular, this article presents the role of these concepts in the foundations of physics and – in a more general aspect – in the recognized fields of knowledge. The nature of Szyszkowski’s analysis allows him to be considered a very interesting thinker in the area that today is called the philosophy of physics or, perhaps more accurately, the philosophy in science. An important observation made by Szyszkowski is emphasized that mathematical structures cannot have physical properties. Attention was also paid to the Polish intellectual community, which was formed in Kiev before 1919.
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The widespread particularist account of the onset of molecular biology that identifies it with the discovery of the DNA structure in 1953 has been recently contested. The paper contributes to this debate by focusing on a more recent discovery of small noncoding RNAs (microRNAs). First, it outlines a particularist account of the microRNAs discovery and the origins of the particularist predilection of the modern scientometric studies of science dynamics. Next, it discusses its limitations and proposes an alternative, modified processualist account of the discovery. In the final part, the paper applies this approach to unravel network dynamics of the research on the first two microRNAs that were discovered, namely lin-4 and let-7.
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On the 10th of April, 2019 the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration presented the first image of the black hole. The image was obtained with a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes. The observation relied on a technique called very long base interferometry which synchronises telescope facilities around the world. The image of a black hole together with the recent detections of gravitational waves confirms one of the most intriguing predictions of Einstein’s gravity theory, namely, the existence of black holes. I will provide more details on this remarkable observation and explore its consequences for our understanding of nature. The physical reality of black holes is strongly supported by recent advances of astronomy. I claim that this fact is the key to understanding the relation between our world and the world of mathematics.
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Book review: David Alcalde, Cosmology Without God?: The Problematic Theology Inherent in Modern Cosmology, Cascade, Eugene 2019, pp.226.
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Józef Życiński;Polish philosophy;philosophy of science;philosophy of natureRecenzja książki: Media – kultura – dialog. W piątą rocznicę śmierci arcybiskupa Józefa Życińskiego, red. R. Nęcek, W. Misztal, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Papieskiego Jana Pawła II w Krakowie, Kraków 2017, ss. 343.
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Both Birkenmajer’s method of work and his achievements, can serve as an example of a appropriate scientific approach to the Middle Ages. The picture of the period he presented radically differs from the stereotypes still prevailing in school educational programmes. Aleksander Birkenmajer (1890–1967) was an prominent Polish medievalist. Owing to his comprehensive education he gained rare competence to work on medieval manuscripts. In his texts, he repeatedly highlights the close relatedness between the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics and natural sciences. The close relation between philosophy and the then science, albeit its scope was much narrower than the purview of today’s natural sciences, became the methodological directive for him. In his research on the philosophy of Witelon, Birkenmajer emphasized the point that he was a philosopher – naturalist, using light in solving metaphysical problems, like many others did in his times, e.g. Richard Bacon or Robert Grosseteste. Witelo’s Perspective is virtually a mathematical-physical treatise with a metaphysical introduction. Birkenmajer managed, among others, to determine that Witelon was the author of the treatise De natura daemonum, the acquaintance of which can have a significant impact on the understanding of his philosophical views as a whole.
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The presented paper is dealing with the issue of identity and individuality in the scope of quantum theory, particularly in relation to the Leibniz’s principle of indiscernibility. As it turned out, the non-individuality of particles is not a necessary consequence of quantum statistics. There is a whole range of possibilities, as in a different metaphysical context, to interpret the physical basis and to provide quantum entities with the status of individual although indistinguishable objects. However, the price on such a procedure is a violation of the Leibniz’s principle. Another possibility is to focus on alternative interpretations of quantum theory, but the problem of this solution lies in the lack of reasonableness of such alternative interpretations and in their methodological deficiencies.
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