Robert Nola

Tensions between idealism and scientific realism have been resolved by an appeal to the theory/observation distinction. but many who support incommensurability reject the distinction in favor of a version of idealism, e.g., thomas kuhn who supports a version of relativist idealism in which the terms of a theory do refer, but only to a paradigm--relative world of entities. it is argued that the three kinds of idealism depend on a cluster theory of meaning for fixing the reference of scientific terms, and that a realist interpretation of the growth of science must eschew such a theory of meaning. the kripke-putnam theory for reference fixing of theoretical terms is employed to show how one term, 'mass', is referentially invariant despite change in the theory of motion from newton to einstein

Despite his strong objections to anti-Semitism, it will be argued that Nietzsche held a curious conspiracy theory about the Jews that is uniquely his own. Modern Jews, he declared, had the power to have mastery over Europe. And Ancient Jews exercised a remarkable power of self-preservation when they got others to accept the slave morality of Christianity. The second claim is shown to have a setting in Nietzsche’s own theory of the genealogy of morals. But it is argued that that theory is defective as an explanation of the genealogy of the Judeo-Christian morality Nietzsche despised. It is also argued that Nietzsche thinks that the noble lie, as opposed to the asceticism of truth seeking, is itself an expression of the “will to power”. But this raises a serious problem for what Nietzsche thought was the status of his own genealogical enterprise. Is his genealogy of morals an example of ascetic truth seeking to be depreciated? Or is it a (not so) “noble lie” that Nietzsche has tried to foist upon us? This is not a profound issue of Nietzsche hermeneutics that Nietzsche apologists might have us believe; rather it is an epistemological muddle on the part of Nietzsche.

Summary In several places Popper describes a little experiment in which an audience is given the non-specific command ‚Observe!‘ He draws a number of conclusions from this experiment, in particular that observation takes place in the presence of theoretical problems, questions, hypotheses or points of view. The paper argues that while Popper's experiment is instructive, it hardly supports the strong conclusions he draws about the theory-dominance of observation in science. In particular, it is argued that talk of principles of selection which guide us to relevant observations, rather than the host of irrelevant observations of the naive inductivist, is misleading. Rather, it is the goals, aims, motives or interests of an observer that guide observation and these need not always involve a theoretical component

Kripke and Putnam have proposed that terms may be introduced to refer to theoretical entities by means of causal descriptions such as 'whatever causes observable effects O'. It is argued that such a reference-fixing definition is ill-formed and that theoretical beliefs must be involved in fixing the reference of a theoretical term. Some examples of reference-fixing are discussed e.g., the term 'electricity'. The Kripke-Putnam theory can not give an account of how terms may be introduced into science and then subsequently be discovered to be non-referring. A modified account of reference-fixing is suggested in which terms such as Gilbert's electric effluvia' and 'phlogiston' can be introduced into science and then be found to lack a reference

These three volumes are amongst the first of a series of anthologies of philosophical writings under the title Oxford Readings in Philosophy, the series editor being G J Warnock. The blurb on the back of each says that ‘the aim of this series is to bring together important recent writings in major areas of philosophical inquiry, selected from a variety of sources, mostly periodicals, which may not be conveniently available to the university student or the general reader’. But all good anthologists have at least this in mind. Hence the glut of anthologies and the reduplication of articles belying the aims of anthologists.