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1. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Sebastián Álvarez Toledo Tenseless Time and Fatalism
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Tenseless time is the series of all moments and events ordered by the relationships before and after. According to this conception, although there is a time order, there is no present and therefore no past nor future. It is what McTaggart called the B-series. For most philosophers, tenseless time is more basic, objective and consistent with science than the tensed time used in our everyday language. However, that conception of time is the subject of several criticisms. One of them states that, given that it admits the existence of events that now we call future, the tenseless time has unavoidable fatalist consequences; because if it is already true today that tomorrow a certain event will occur, we now can in fact do nothing to avoid it. This paper analyses the specific sense of tenseless existence and tenseless truth and concludes that, if we properly understand these concepts, there is no reason to attribute fatalist connotations to tenseless time, and that the aforementioned criticism is based on the mistake of introducing in this conception of time some tensed notions of existence and truth, which are alien to it.
2. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Thomas Bonk Measures of Simplicity
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There is a broad consensus that the proper measure of simplicity of phenomenological laws (models) is the number of its free parameters. I argue that the “measure” is specious without a prior understanding of what simplicity is. To this end I propose an empirical interpretation of simplicity. Next, I sketch a general method for assigning degrees of simplicity to the elements of a given function space that complements the empirical characterization. It is shown that a “function space” approach can help overcome difficulties of Bayesian accounts of the curve fitting problem.
3. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
In-Rae Cho Toward a Co-evolutionary Model of Scientific Change
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In this work, I attempt to develop what I call a co-evolutionary model of scientific change, which I expect to afford a more balanced view on both the continuous and discontinuous aspects of scientific change. Supposing that scientific goals, methods and theories constitute the main components of scientific inquiry, I focus on the relationships among these components and their changing patterns. First of all, I identify explanatory power and empirical adequacy as primary goals of science and explore the possibility of evaluating scientific goals. Then I try to bring out the major features of how the main components of science are related to each other. One major feature is that they mutually constrain each other, and as such each main component operates as a selective force on the other components. Another major feature is that the main components of science induce changes reciprocally, but with certain intervals. Other important features are the modes and tempos of changes in the main components of scientific inquiry. All these features together, I conclude, suggest that scientific change is evolutionary (rather than revolutionary), as well as co-evolutionary. Finally I argue that this co-evolutionary model of scientific change does not yield to what I call the problems of circularity and scientific progress.
4. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Naira Danielyan Considerations on the Modern Scientific Picture of the World as a Unity of Objective and Subjective Characters
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Unlike the classic science which was directed to ascertaining some fact, the modern science is oriented an act of project and constructive thinking being opened for further critics. Such kind of activity supposes freedom and creative work. The scientific and technical development as a rational activity has brought a lot of positive aspects in the enlargement of personal freedom. It should be recognized that some new rationality appears in the course of the scientific and technological progress. The object sphere is expanded in the new scientific picture of the world due to including such systems in it as ‘artificial intellect’, ‘virtual reality’, etc. which are the results of the scientific and technological progress. Such radical extension of the object sphere takes place in parallel with its radical ‘humanization’. And a person is included in the picture of the world not only as its active participant, but as its constituent principle. An Individual must be not only the centre of the world, but an incentive to its growing perfection
5. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Vera Danilova Transdisciplinary Research into New Patterns of Reality
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Representation of the concept of noobiogeosphere previously developed by the author is given. Concepts “noobiogeosphere”, “noobiogeocenosis”, “noobiogeospheric personality” are interpreted in terms of the transdisciplinary methodology. These are the attributes of a new model of reality, which are complemented by subjective structures. According to this methodology, “noobiogeospheric personality” should be understood as a subjective structure of the new reality, because of which value reference points penetrate in this reality. The concept of noobiogeosphere is based on the study of planetary-civilizational shells that help to create new planetary integrity and the formation of synthetic worldview universals. Noobiogeosphere is an ontological foundation of modern universalism, which is caused by planetary scale studies of the phenomena connected with nature, man and society. It is the composite human-dimensional complex of the biosphere, civilization, socio-cultural and planetary shells, and it is an example of a new model of reality, which can be studied only by transdisciplinary approach. The proposed concept involves the formation of noobiogeospheric class of sciences, which contain principles of biospheric class of sciences and axioms of humanitarian sphere. Disciplinary matrixes in noobiogeospheric class of sciences transform into transdisciplinary matrix. unit of self-organization processes are based on different laws (physical, chemical, biological, social).
6. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Mikel Henda Gomez de Segura Time as an Evolutive Idealization
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I am going to argue that time is an idealization and its origins are in our perception of reality. I will also maintain that it comes from an excessive realism when interpreting the concept of time in physics. I will maintain that time is just the measure of changes of systems in relation with other changing systems. Time is a quantity we use to order events, a relation between changes, however, it is not a substance. I will assume that there are two main conceptions of time: a) the time of our everyday knowledge, which is mainly a construction of our perception; and b) the concept of time provided by the physical sciences. Nevertheless, both concepts of time have little in common. I will argue that the concept of time of our perception has evolutionary bases.
7. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Manuela Fernandez Pinto Commercialization and the Limits of Critical Contextual Empiricism
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Philosophers of science have become increasingly concerned with the social dimensions of scientific knowledge. The general aim of the paper is to show that approaches in social epistemology of science fail to take into account important changes that the organization of science has undergone in the past decades. I argue that the social organization of science is an important “social dimension” of scientific knowledge that philosophers need to consider. In order to do so, I focus on Helen Longino’s social epistemology of science as portrayed in her critical contextual empiricism. I show that Longino’s approach has important limitations when trying to implement it as a guide for current research through an evaluation of two of her norms of effective criticism.
8. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Rodolfo Gaeta, Nélida Gentile, Susana Lucero On The Trouble with the Historical Philosophy of Science
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The philosophy of science developed since the second half of the 20th century has included naturalized perspectives. Kuhn, Feyerabend and followers of the Strong Programme have claimed a role for History and Sociology. But to privilege the historical and sociological issues could precipitate the philosophy of science into a self-destructive relativism. Kuhn’s ideas on the relationship between philosophy and history of science have produced lasting effects in discrediting traditional philosophies of science. In this paper we focus on the tensions shown in the evolution of Kuhn’s thinking and we point out, among other difficulties, some fundamental inconsistencies at a metahistorical and meta-philosophical level.
9. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Guo Guichun, Guo Jianbo The Methodological Function of Scientific Metaphor
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Scientific metaphor builds a bridge between the given and representation, evidence and guess, convention and hypothesis, and makes it possible for scientists to stride forward from direct and immediate scientific facts and materials of empirical observation to possible and reasonable theoretical construction. It also sets up a springboard to finally realize creative leaps of scientific theories. In this way, scientific metaphor can surmount one-dimensional literal meaning and pure empirical criteria, dispel the stable referential theory and ossified logical construction, and get rid of the logical limits and bounds of the strict causal determinism. It deserves notice that some critics of scientific metaphor attempt to deny the methodological significance of metaphor by citing certain metaphorical cases that have failed in the history of science. However, we cannot take these cases to be the evidence of the whole failure of metaphor in methodology. Every scientific tradition has applied metaphor in different ways to achieve its descriptive function. The effective use of this special resource has great methodological significance and value.
10. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Valentin Karpovich Science, Objectivity, and Progress
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Post positivist epistemology treats science as merely a matter of consensus. The main reason for that is the lack of objectivity. We argue that objectivity is not an essential claim for a scientific methodology. Science as an institutional enterprise is characterized mainly by progressive discourse and not by objectivity. In turn, progressiveness depends on a set of norms and regulative principles. This view of science as progressive discourse provides a more adequate basis for dealing with opinion conflicts, scientific methodology, and questions of authority in science than does the consensus view.
11. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Salahaddin Khalilov ‘Native’ and ‘Alien’ Knowledge and the Conditions of their Compatibility
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The ‘placement’ of new types of knowledge in certain theoretical systems is thought within the limits of the two side models: Every new knowledge is added to previous knowledge when the principle of cumulativity is used as base. The main problem is how this `addition` is realized. However, there is a second way; the existing system of knowledge collapses and then is constructed once again. The real process usually happens between these two poles. It depends on the compatibility between new knowledge and the theory whether previous knowledge will be preserved or will be destroyed and constructed anew. Together with the methods of verification and falsification it is also possible to examine the accuracy of new theoretical proposals by means of theoretical trial-and-error method. The implementation of this method, which is widely spread in practice, to theory is realized by the way of entering any new idea and proposal directly to the structure of the theory without any control. It becomes a criterion of truth whether or not new knowledge is compatible with the known theoretical system, which has already been tested, and whether it is native or alien to this system.
12. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Dimitris Kilakos On Pragmatic Approaches of Scientific Representation – Points of Criticism
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Taking user’s role and features as milestones for an approach on scientific representation has become a growing trend. We shall investigate the implications that pragmatics bring in the relevant debate. Proponents of pragmatic approaches support that questions such as ‘how an object represents another’ or ‘which features of a certain object represent the target of the representation and in what way’ can be answered only within the given context of representation’s use. Thus, attention is drawn to the intentionality of the representation, in contrast to the semantic tradition, according to which the representational function is based on morphic relations between the representation and the represented object. Given that scientific representations surrogate objects and phenomena in our studies, they should reproduce aspects, relations and interactions of them, possessing the appropriate features. Therefore, we support that user’s intention is not enough to build the representational relation on it. We claim that a) a sustainable and successful theory of scientific representations cannot be grounded on pragmatics b) pragmatic approaches undermine the objectivity of the knowledge inferred by representations c) the important role of the cognizing subject in a theory of scientific representation can be rescued without the burden coming with pragmatic approaches.
13. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Artur Koterski The Backbone of a Straw Man: Popper’s Criticism of the Vienna Circle Inductivism
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In his monograph on the Vienna Circle Kraft writes that “one of the earliest and most fundamental insights of the Vienna Circle” was “that no deductive or logical justification of induction is at all possible” (Kraft 1953, 130). In Logik der Forschung Popper developed his philosophical conception starting from a very emphatic critique of logical positivism and its alleged essential feature inductivism. Although Kraft’s assessment is essentially correct, as the present paper intends to show, Popper’s opinion prevailed and came to dominate philosophical handbooks for decades. However, it must be admitted that the Vienna Circle attitude towards induction might have been misleading, and in a sense invite misunderstandings. Whilst the members of the Schlick-Kreis clearly recognized the impossibility of any logical justification of induction, some of them believed that induction was a part and parcel of scientific conduct and instead of denying its existence they tried to change its epistemological status. The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it is to display this evasive policy—namely, how to keep induction rationally, nevertheless without justification. Secondly, it is to demonstrate that Popper’s criticism of the 1930s was already by then an anachronism.
14. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Ewa Agnieszka Lekka-Kowalik Mode 2 Science and its Consequences
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The paper analyzes the conception of Mode 2 Science as a new paradigm of doing science. First, main attributes of Mode 2 are characterized as: (1) research in the context of application; (2) trans-disciplinarity; (3) research centers dispersed and heterogenous; (4) a great degree of reflexivity and accountability; (5) new criteria of good science. Secondly, some consequences of developing science in that paradigm are indicated: seeing knowledge as a product and commodity, what changes an organizational form of science and ethical norms governing it as well as social functions of science; criteria of good research develop in the process of merging epistemic and non-epistemic values what incorporates ethical considerations into doing science; the idea of the autonomy of science is changed as the co-evolution of science and society is postulated. Thirdly, some question and objection are formulated. The paper finally shows theoretical and practical reasons why philosophical analysis of Mode 2 is necessary, including the fact that the development of science depends on our understanding of what science is.
15. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Tatiana Leshkevich Transformations of Modern Methodology
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Philosophy in the contemporary world is closely connected with the modern techno-scientific civilization. At the same time the present state of reality is defined by scientists as a non-equilibrium word. Scholars and especially methodologists as the subjects possessing the knowledge of thinking technology pay attention to studying the influence of information reality on a person’s life and activity. The focus of attention is directed to “situational” methodology. A set of heuristic methods of the research authorizing search and decision-making in the conditions of uncertainty is considered. Now it is important to estimate the tool value of such methodological means as fractality, attractor, chaos, emergence, complexity. Chaos is now thought of as a “cause of spontaneous structure genesis”. The attractor sets forming “the centre of slipping” into an accumulation point. By doing this the attractors seem to absorb the chaos, structure the surroundings and participate in creating order. Methodology is realized in the meaning of technology of activity which is projected onto the innovation sphere in the context of its genesis, adaptability, spreading and consumption. However it has become clear that scientific forecast is to enable us to avoid large-scale negative consequences of the global technological development.
16. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Arkadiy Lipkin Physics Branch Foundations and their Form for Quantum Mechanics
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Modern theoretical physics consists of separate branches (such as classical and quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, etc.) with their own foundations (which is usually out of philosophical reflection). Physics branch foundations (PBF) consist of appropriate system of statements, which define basic ideal entities of a branch. The few of them are called “primary ideal objects” (PIOs). Physical theory of a phenomenon is based on secondary ideal object (SIO), which is built of PIOs (e.g. SIO as system of particles (PIO) with interactions between them). The result is the object-centred two level hierarchical structure of physical theories. PBF has a definite structure, which contains “theoretical ideal objects part” with stratums of physical model and mathematical motion description, and “operational part” with technical operations of preparing <P| and measuring |M>. PBF of contemporary quantum mechanics can be represented as a set of clear postulates, which fill this structure with concrete content. This set consists of 4 subsets: Schrödinger’s postulates, which introduce the mathematical image of the state in the form of wave function ΨA(t) and Schrödinger’s motion equation; Born’s postulates, which introduce probability into the concept of state; Heisenberg’s procedure of quantization; postulate of identity of quantum particles for many-particle systems.
17. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Elena Mamchur Metaphysics and Progress of Science
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The paper proves unproductiveness of instrumentalist ideology in interpretation of the nature of scientific concepts and theories. While legitimate on a short distance of science development, it however, inevitably leads on the “long run” of theories to stagnation in science development. The strategy of employing theoretical concepts merely as instruments of predicting new results deprives scientist of a stimulus to emerge “beyond the existing into the sphere of super-existing” (M Heidegger). Under “super existing” Heidegger understands metaphysics. The ignoring of “super-existence” blocks the access to the most valuable source of intelligibility of the very existence.
18. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Chrysostomos Mantzavinos Explanatory Games
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A philosophical theory of explanation should provide solutions to a series of problems, both descriptive and normative. The aim of this essay is to establish the claim that this can be best done if one theorizes in terms of explanatory games rather than focusing on the explication of the concept of explanation. The development of the precise meaning of the concept of scientific explanation occupies centre-stage in all contemporary approaches. The alternative position that seems obvious and which is adopted is that of an explanatory pluralism. At every moment of time there is a stock of explanations available in a society proposed by ordinary people “in the wild” or by specialists organized formally or semi-formally within specific organizational structures such as churches, universities, etc. The terms of provision, control, and dissemination of explanations in this collective explanatory enterprise are regulated by the different rules that the participants have come to adopt over time. These rules incorporate the normative standards that guide the processes of discovery and justification of explanations as well as the modes of their communication, dissemination, and adoption. They constitute the rules of the explanatory game that the participants are playing. The philosophical project consists in describing and normatively appraising the rules that constitute these games. This project is fundamentally liberal, in the sense that participants and non-participants to the game alike engage in the critical discussion and revision of the rules or to put it in other terms, the project is fundamentally naturalistic - philosophers and scientists equally take part in it.
19. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Peeter Müürsepp Philosophy as Inquiry of Inquiry
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Philosophy has sometimes been considered to be the science of science. Analogously, it can perhaps be called inquiry of inquiry. Traditional modern science has been aimed at acquiring knowledge of truth. Thus, it can be called knowledge-inquiry. It can be debated, however, whether knowledge of truth is the ultimate goal we have to achieve in science. Perhaps solving the problems of living should be brought to the foreground rather than the problems of knowledge. In order to fulfil this task, we have to exchange knowledge-inquiry for wisdom-inquiry as Nicholas Maxwell has suggested. The latter involves the quest for knowledge but adds its application to the picture. There has to be constant improvement of the aims of scientific research in order to reach for the problems of living. This can be achieved in the scope of a new Enlightenment. As the result, the position of social sciences and humanities will be turned into a fundamental one. The attempts to model these fields after physics have to be stopped. The main task of social sciences and humanities is decisively different from that of physics and all other natural sciences. A new methodology has to be invented for these intellectual fields.
20. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 62
Carol Nicholson Reckoning with History: Kuhn’s Influence on Philosophy
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“Presentism,” defined as a lack of interest in history in general, is a characteristic of many if not most Western philosophers, according to a recent contributor to the New York Times online philosophy forum, The Stone. Although I agree that most 20th century philosophers were “presentists,” I argue that contemporary philosophy is beginning to change its attitude toward history and that this is due, at least in part, to the influence of T. S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which set a powerful example of a broader and more interdisciplinary image of the discipline. I do not examine what Kuhn said about paradigms, but I discuss several ways in which his work is itself a paradigm in the sense of being an exemplar for future research: 1) it takes a historical approach to a discipline that had traditionally been viewed as unhistorical; 2) it is profoundly interdisciplinary in that it undermines boundaries between traditional disciplines; 3) it has been fruitful in opening up new fields of research. Using these three criteria, I point to recent developments in philosophy that carry on Kuhn’s legacy and suggest some possible candidates for new paradigms.