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21On the possibility of a scientific theory of scientific methodScience & Education 8 (4): 427-439. 1999.Normative naturalism (NN), advocated by Larry Laudan, understands the principles of scientific method to be akin to scientific hypotheses which are then open to test like any principles of science. It uses a meta-inductive rule to test methodological principles against suitably presented episodes in the history of science. One strength of NN is that it provides the basis for a philosophical/historical research programme into the methodological strategies actually employed in the sciences. But fo…Read more
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19Demystifying Religious BeliefIn Hans van Eyghen, Rik Peels & Gijsbert van den Brink (eds.), New Developments in the Cognitive Science of Religion - The Rationality of Religious Belief, Springer. pp. 71-92. 2018.Robert Nola contrasts naturalistic with supernaturalistic explanations of religious belief. He argues that there are two broad rival explanations for religious belief. The first, the common “folk” or religious explanation, is supernaturalistic in that it invokes a deity as a central casual factor in the etiology of people’s belief in the existence of God. The second is naturalistic in that it eschews any appeal to a deity in the explanation of a person’s belief in God and instead invokes only na…Read more
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17Relativism and Realism in Science (edited book)Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1988.The institutionalization of History and Philosophy of Science as a distinct field of scholarly endeavour began comparatively earl- though not always under that name - in the Australasian region. An initial lecturing appointment was made at the University of Melbourne immediately after the Second World War, in 1946, and other appoint ments followed as the subject underwent an expansion during the 1950s and 1960s similar to that which took place in other parts of the world. Today there are major D…Read more
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16Marc Lange: Laws and Lawmakers; Science, Metaphysics and the Laws of NatureScience & Education 21 (2): 271-277. 2012.
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16Constructivism in science and science education: a philosophical critiqueScience & Education 6 (1-2): 55-83. 1997.
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15The Logical Structure of the World and Pseudoproblems in Philosophy (review)Philosophical Studies (Dublin) 17 (n/a): 261-264. 1968.It is convenient to review these two books together because of the obvious indebtedness of the latter to the former. The book by Carnap is the first English translation of his classic Der Logische Aufbau der Welt initially published in Berlin in 1928. It also includes his short Scheinprobleme in der Philosophic published first in the same year. The translator has produced a very readable text of two complex works and Carnap has added a new preface outlining his present attitude to his work of ov…Read more
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15Darwin’s Arguments in Favour of Natural Selection and Against Special CreationismScience & Education 22 (2): 149-171. 2013.
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13Review. Paul Feyerabend. Killing timeBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (3): 467-473. 1996.
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11Social Studies of ScienceIn Martin Curd & Stathis Psillos (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science, Routledge. pp. 259--68. 2008.
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10Rescuing Reason: A Critique of Anti-Rationalist Views of Science and KnowledgeSpringer Verlag. 2012.Do knowledge and science arise from the application of canons of rationality and scientific method? Or is all our scientific knowledge caused by socio-political factors, or by our interests in the socio-political - the view of sociologists of "knowledge"? Or does it result from interplay of relations of power - the view of Michel Foucault? Or does our knowledge arise from "the will to power" - the view of Nietzsche? This volume sets out to critically examine the theses of those who would debunk …Read more
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9Special Issue on FoucaultPsychology Press. 1998.The crisis of liberalism is in its claim to endorse neutral procedures that allow individuals and groups to pursue their own good, when the very possibility of such neutrality is affected by the growth of plural societies, and resulting divisions of loyalty. This collection explores this crisis.
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6The Philosophy of Perception (review)Philosophical Studies (Dublin) 17 (n/a): 276-277. 1968.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 anthologis…Read more
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6Michael Strevens: Depth: an Account of Scientific ExplanationScience & Education 20 (2): 201-206. 2011.
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6Observation and Growth in Scientific KnowledgePSA Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986 (1): 245-257. 1986.The first published paper on pulsars was entitled, by its five co-authors, “Observation of a Rapidly Pulsating Radio Source”. (Hewish, et al. 1968). The publication of this paper preceded by some months the coining of the word ‘pulsar’ to refer to such pulsating radio sources. Does it seem odd to talk of observing pulsars? It might seem so since much effort has subsequently gone into identifying pulsars with optically visible stars using conventional light, not radio, telescopes. We can say that…Read more
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4The Enlightenment: Truths Behind a Misleading AbstractionIn Michael R. Matthews (ed.), History, Philosophy and Science Teaching: New Perspectives, Springer Verlag. pp. 43-66. 2017.What does the nominalization ‘The Enlightenment’ refer to? Sometimes it is used merely to name a period of time in European history. Sometimes it is use to refer to a movement or a process. Again, it is used to refer to some body of doctrine. On other occasions, it is used to refer to people who advanced such bodies of doctrine. Contexts of use may not be sufficient to determine the referent of ‘The Enlightenment’. Such a nominalization is to be contrasted with the use of the adjective ‘enlighte…Read more
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2The Optimistic Meta-Induction and Ontological Continuity: The Case of the ElectronIn Lena Soler, Howard Sankey & Paul Hoyningen-Huene (eds.), Rethinking Scientific Change and Theory Comparison: Stabilities, Ruptures, Incommensurabilities?, Springer. 2008.