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129Is it possible to nominalize quantum mechanics?Philosophy of Science 70 (5): 1424-1436. 2003.Hartry Field (1980) has developed an interesting nominalization strategy for Newtonian gravitation theory—a strategy that reformulates the theory without quantification over abstract entities. According to David Malament (1982), Field's strategy cannot be extended to quantum mechanics (QM), and so it only has a limited scope. In a recent work, Mark Balaguer has responded to Malament's challenge by indicating how QM can be nominalized, and by “doing much of the work needed to provide the nominali…Read more
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17Book reviews (review)History and Philosophy of Logic 19 (4): 267-277. 1998.Michael Dummett, Frege and other philosophers. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1991. xii + 330pp. £35. ISBN W.Balzer and C.U.Moulines (eds,), Structuralist theory of science:focal issues, new results, Berlin; de Gruyter, 1996. xi + 295 pp.DM 210. ISBN 3-11-014075-6 Henry Prakken, Logical tools for modeling legal argument a study of defeasible reasoning in law.Dordrecht, The Netherlands:Kluwer Academic, 1997, xiii + 314pp.£75.00/$125.00 J.Srzednicki and Z.Stachniak (eds.) Lesniewski’s Systems.Protothetic…Read more
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61Perception and Conception: Shaping Human Minds (review)Biosemiotics 6 (3): 323-336. 2013.Perceptual experiences provide an important source of information about the world. It is clear that having the capacity of undergoing such experiences yields an evolutionary advantage. But why should humans have developed not only the ability of simply seeing, but also of seeing that something is thus and so? In this paper, I explore the significance of distinguishing perception from conception for the development of the kind of minds that creatures such as humans typically have. As will become …Read more
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87Yablo's paradox and referring to infinite objectsAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (3). 2003.The blame for the semantic and set-theoretic paradoxes is often placed on self-reference and circularity. Some years ago, Yablo [1985; 1993] challenged this diagnosis, by producing a paradox that's liar-like but does not seem to involve circularity. But is Yablo's paradox really non-circular? In a recent paper, Beall [2001] has suggested that there are no means available to refer to Yablo's paradox without invoking descriptions, and since Priest [1997] has shown that any such description is circ…Read more
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156Empiricism, scientific change and mathematical changeStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 31 (2): 269-296. 2000.The aim of this paper is to provide a unified account of scientific and mathematical change in a thoroughly empiricist setting. After providing a formal modelling in terms of embedding, and criticising it for being too restrictive, a second modelling is advanced. It generalises the first, providing a more open-ended pattern of theory development, and is articulated in terms of da Costa and French's partial structures approach. The crucial component of scientific and mathematical change is spelle…Read more
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74Relativism and ScepticismInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 16 (2): 247-254. 2008.This Article does not have an abstract
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73Troubles with trivialismInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 50 (6). 2007.According to the trivialist, everything is true. But why would anyone believe that? It turns out that trivialism emerges naturally from a certain inconsistency view of language, and it has significant benefits that need to be acknowledged. But trivialism also encounters some troubles along the way. After discussing them, I sketch a couple of alternatives that can preserve the benefits of trivialism without the corresponding costs.
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923Ask a philosopher what a proof is, and you’re likely to get an answer hii empaszng one or another regimentationl of that notion in terms of a finite sequence of formalized statements, each of which is either an axiom or is derived from an axiom by certain inference rules. (Wecan call this the formal conception of proof) Ask a mathematician what a proof is, and you will rbbl poay get a different-looking answer. Instead of stressing a partic- l uar regimented notion of proof, the answer the mathem…Read more
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265The physics and metaphysics of identity and individuality Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9463-7 Authors Don Howard, Department of Philosophy and Graduate Program in History and Philosophy of Science, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA Bas C. van Fraassen, Philosophy Department, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132, USA Otávio Bueno, Department of Philosophy, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA Elena Caste…Read more
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260Structural Realism, Scientific Change, and Partial StructuresStudia Logica 89 (2): 213-235. 2008.Scientific change has two important dimensions: conceptual change and structural change. In this paper, I argue that the existence of conceptual change brings serious difficulties for scientific realism, and the existence of structural change makes structural realism look quite implausible. I then sketch an alternative account of scientific change, in terms of partial structures, that accommodates both conceptual and structural changes. The proposal, however, is not realist, and supports a struc…Read more
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380A plea for a modal realist epistemologyActa Analytica 15 (24): 175--194. 2000.In this paper we examine Lewis's attempts to provide an epistemology of modality and we argue that he fails to provide an account that properly weds his metaphysics with an epistemology that explains the knowledge of modality that both he and his critics grant. We argue that neither the appeals to acceptable paraphrases of ordinary modal discourse nor parallels with Platonistic theories of mathematics suffice. We conclude that no proper epistemology for modal realism has been provided and that o…Read more
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175Professor Newton CA da Costa awarded Nicholas Copernicus University medal of meritLogic and Logical Philosophy 7 7-10. 1999.
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Models and scientific representationsIn P. D. Magnus & Jacob Busch (eds.), New Waves in Philosophy of Science, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 94--111. 2009.
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51Gennaro Chtjerchia, Dynamics of meaning: anaphora, presupposition, and the the of grammar. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1995.xv+ 270 pp, £59.95, £31.95 G. Pr...
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90In this first paper of a series of works on the foundations of science, we examine the significance of logical and mathematical frameworks used in foundational studies. In particular, we emphasize the distinction between the order of a language and the order of a structure to prevent confusing models of scientific theories with first-order structures, and which are studied in standard model theory. All of us are, of course, bound to make abuses of language even in putatively precise contexts. Th…Read more
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84Is science inconsistent?Synthese 191 (13): 2887-2889. 2014.There has always been interest in inconsistency in science, not least within science itself as scientists strive to devise a consistent picture of the universe. Some important early landmarks in this history are Copernicus’s criticism of the Ptolemaic picture of the heavens, Galileo’s claim that Aristotle’s theory of motion was inconsistent, and Berkeley’s claim that the early calculus was inconsistent. More recent landmarks include the classical theory of the electron, Bohr’s theory of the atom…Read more
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754Paradox without satisfactionAnalysis 63 (2). 2003.Consider the following denumerably infinite sequence of sentences: (s1) For all k > 1, sk is not true. (s2) For all k > 2, sk is not true. (s3) For all k > 3, sk is not true.
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Paraconsistent logicIn Susana Nuccetelli, Ofelia Schutte & Otávio Bueno (eds.), A Companion to Latin American Philosophy, Wiley-blackwell. 2009.
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265How Theories RepresentBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62 (4): 857-894. 2011.An account of scientific representation in terms of partial structures and partial morphisms is further developed. It is argued that the account addresses a variety of difficulties and challenges that have recently been raised against such formal accounts of representation. This allows some useful parallels between representation in science and art to be drawn, particularly with regard to apparently inconsistent representations. These parallels suggest that a unitary account of scientific and ar…Read more
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31We present an axiomatic framework for semantics that can be applied to natural and formal languages. Our main goal is to suggest a very simple mathematical model that describes fundamental cognitive aspects of the human brain and that can still be applied to artificial intelligence. One of our main results is a theorem that allows us to infer syntactical properties of a language out of its corresponding semantics. The role of pragmatics in semantics in our mathematical framework is also discusse…Read more
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21Why inconsistency is not hell : Making room for inconsistency in scienceIn Erik J. Olsson (ed.), Knowledge and Inquiry: Essays on the Pragmatism of Isaac Levi, Cambridge University Press. pp. 70. 2006.
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85Empiricism, conservativeness, and quasi-truthPhilosophy of Science 66 (3): 485. 1999.A first step is taken towards articulating a constructive empiricist philosophy of mathematics, thus extending van Fraassen's account to this domain. In order to do so, I adapt Field's nominalization program, making it compatible with an empiricist stance. Two changes are introduced: (a) Instead of taking conservativeness as the norm of mathematics, the empiricist countenances the weaker notion of quasi-truth (as formulated by da Costa and French), from which the formal properties of conservativ…Read more
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68Is there a zande logic?History and Philosophy of Logic 19 (1): 41-54. 1998.The issue of what consequences to draw from the existence of non-classical logical systems has been the subject of an interesting debate across a diversity of fields. In this paper the matter of alternative logics is considered with reference to a specific belief system and its propositions :the Azande are said to maintain beliefs about witchcraft which, when expressed propositionally, appear to be inconsistent. When the Azande have been presented with such inconsistencies, they either fail to s…Read more
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205On representing the relationship between the mathematical and the empiricalPhilosophy of Science 69 (3): 497-518. 2002.We examine, from the partial structures perspective, two forms of applicability of mathematics: at the “bottom” level, the applicability of theoretical structures to the “appearances”, and at the “top” level, the applicability of mathematical to physical theories. We argue that, to accommodate these two forms of applicability, the partial structures approach needs to be extended to include a notion of “partial homomorphism”. As a case study, we present London's analysis of the superfluid behavio…Read more
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48The Drexler-Smalley Debate on Nanotechnology: Incommensurability at Work?Hyle 10 (2). 2004.In a recent debate, Eric Drexler and Richard Smalley have discussed the chemical and physical possibility of constructing molecular assemblers - devices that guide chemical reactions by placing, with atomic precision, reactive molecules. Drexler insisted on the mechanical feasibility of such assemblers, whereas Smalley resisted the idea that such devices could be chemically constructed, because we do not have the required control. Underlying the debate, there are differences regarding the approp…Read more
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38Belief Systems and Partial SpacesFoundations of Science 21 (1): 225-236. 2016.One important role of belief systems is to allow us to represent information about a certain domain of inquiry. This paper presents a formal framework to accommodate such information representation. Three cognitive models to represent information are discussed: conceptual spaces, state-spaces, and the problem spaces familiar from artificial intelligence. After indicating their weakness to deal with partial information, it is argued that an alternative, formulated in terms of partial structures, …Read more
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1What is Semantics? A Brief Note on a Huge QuestionSorites 3 43-47. 1995.After mentioning the cogent connection between pure semantics and the particular set theoretical framework in which it is formulated, some issues regarding the conceptual status of semantics itself, as well as its relationship to logic, are concisely raised.
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Areas of Specialization
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Philosophy of Mathematics |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Aesthetics |
Philosophy of Physical Science |