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1705Thinking about mechanismsPhilosophy of Science 67 (1): 1-25. 2000.The concept of mechanism is analyzed in terms of entities and activities, organized such that they are productive of regular changes. Examples show how mechanisms work in neurobiology and molecular biology. Thinking in terms of mechanisms provides a new framework for addressing many traditional philosophical issues: causality, laws, explanation, reduction, and scientific change
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167Activities and causation: The metaphysics and epistemology of mechanismsInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 18 (1). 2004.This article deals with mechanisms conceived as composed of entities and activities. In response to many perplexities about the nature of activities, a number of arguments are developed concerning their epistemic and ontological status. Some questions concerning the relations between cause and causal explanation and mechanisms are also addressed.
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130In Quest for Scientific Psychiatry: Toward Bridging the Explanatory GapPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 20 (3): 261-273. 2013.The contemporary epistemic status of mental health disciplines does not allow the cross validation of mental disorders among various genetic markers, biochemical pathway or mechanisms, and clinical assessments in neuroscience explanations. We attempt to provide a meta-empirical analysis of the contemporary status of the cross-disciplinary issues existing between neuro-biology and psychopathology. Our case studies take as an established medical mode an example cross validation between biological …Read more
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129Rational reconstructions revisedTheoria 16 (3): 461-480. 2001.Imre Lakatos’ idea that history of science without philosophy of science is blind may still be given a plausible interpretation today, even though his theory of the methodology of scientific research programmes has been rejected. The latter theory captures neither rationality in science nor the sense in which history must be told in a rational fashion. Nonetheless, Lakatos was right in insisting that the discipline of history consists of written rational reconstructions. In this paper, we will e…Read more
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117Theory and Method in the Neurosciences (edited book)Pittsburgh University Press. 2001.Surveys theories in contemporary neuroscience, exploring many of its methodological techniques and problems.
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106Science, Values, and Objectivity (edited book)University of Pittsburgh Press. 2004.Few people, if any, still argue that science in all its aspects is a value-free endeavor. At the very least, values affect decisions about the choice of research problems to investigate and the uses to which the results of research are applied. But what about the actual doing of science? As Science, Values, and Objectivity reveals, the connections and interactions between values and science are quite complex. The essays in this volume identify the crucial values that play a role in science, dist…Read more
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102Feyerabend and Galileo: The interaction of theories, and the reinterpretation of experienceStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 4 (1): 1-46. 1973.
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99Phenomena, data and theories: a special issue of SyntheseSynthese 182 (1): 1-5. 2011.The papers collected here are the result of an INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM: Data · Phenomena · Theories: What’s the notion of a scientific phenomenon good for? held in Heidelberg in September 2008. The event was organized by the research group Causality, Cognition, and the Constitution of Scientific Phenomena in cooperation with Philosophy Department at the University of Heidelberg (Peter McLaughlin and Andreas Kemmerling) and the IWH Heidelberg. The symposium was supported by the Emmy-Noether-Progr…Read more
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91
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78Mechanistic Information and Causal ContinuityIn Phyllis McKay Illari, Federica Russo & Jon Williamson (eds.), Causality in the Sciences, Oxford University Press. 2010.Some biological processes move from step to step in a way that cannot be completely understood solely in terms of causes and correlations. This paper develops a notion of mechanistic information that can be used to explain the continuities of such processes. We compare them to processes that do not involve information. We compare our conception of mechanistic information to some familiar notions including Crick’s idea of genetic information, Shannon-Weaver information, and Millikan’s biosemantic…Read more
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77Interpretation: Ways of Thinking About the Sciences and the Arts (edited book)University of Pittsburgh Press. 2010.The act of interpretation occurs in nearly every area of the arts and sciences. That ubiquity serves as the inspiration for the fourteen essays of this volume, covering many of the domains in which interpretive practices are found. Individual topics include: the general nature of interpretation and its forms; comparing and contrasting interpretation and hermeneutics; culture as interpretation seen through Hegel’s aesthetics; interpreting philosophical texts; methodologies for interpreting human …Read more
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72Scientific controversies: philosophical and historical perspectives (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2000.Traditionally it has been thought that scientific controversies can always be resolved on the basis of empirical data. Recently, however, social constructionists have claimed that the outcome of scientific debates is strongly influenced by non-evidential factors such as the rhetorical prowess and professional clout of the participants. This volume of previously unpublished essays by well-known philosophers of science presents historical studies and philosophical analyses that undermine the plaus…Read more
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67Newton and the mechanical philosophy: Gravitation as the balance of the heavensSouthern Journal of Philosophy 50 (3): 370-388. 2012.We argue that Isaac Newton really is best understood as being in the tradition of the Mechanical Philosophy and, further, that Newton saw himself as being in this tradition. But the tradition as Newton understands it is not that of Robert Boyle and many others, for whom the Mechanical Philosophy was defined by contact action and a corpuscularean theory of matter. Instead, as we argue in this paper, Newton interpreted and extended the Mechanical Philosophy's slogan “matter and motion” in referenc…Read more
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63Mindscapes: Philosophy, Science, and the Mind (edited book)University of Pittsburgh Press. 1997.Leading scholars in the fields of philosophy and the sciences of the mind have contributed to this newest volume in the prestigious Pittsburgh-Konstanz series. Among the problem areas discussed are folk psychology, meanings as conceptual structures, functional and qualitative properties of colors, the role of conscious mental states, representation and mental content, the impact of connectionism on the philosophy of the mind, and supervenience, emergence, and realization. Most of the essays are …Read more
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59The Blackwell guide to the philosophy of science (edited book)Blackwell. 2002.This volume presentsa definitive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of science.
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54Perception, Realism, and the Problem of Reference (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2012.One of the perennial themes in philosophy is the problem of our access to the world around us; do our perceptual systems bring us into contact with the world as it is or does perception depend upon our individual conceptual frameworks? This volume of new essays examines reference as it relates to perception, action and realism, and the questions which arise if there is no neutral perspective or independent way to know the world. The essays discuss the nature of referring, concentrating on the wa…Read more
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53Descartes's Changing MindPrinceton University Press. 2009.This is the first book to focus on Descartes's changing views, and it is welcome."--Roger Ariew, University of South Florida
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48Rendering clinical psychology an evidence‐based scientific discipline: a case studyJournal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18 (1): 149-154. 2012.
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47This paper details the ontological and epistemic character of activties that occur in mechanisms. It explains why they are sufficient to handle the problems of causation.
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45Daniela Bailer‐Jones, 1969–2006International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 21 (2). 2007.This Article does not have an abstract
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45Scientific normativity as non-epistemic: A hidden Kuhnian legacySocial Epistemology 17 (1). 2003.This Article does not have an abstract
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42Philosophy and the Brain SciencesIris. European Journal of Philosophy and Public Debate 1 (2): 353-374. 2009.What are the differences between philosophy and science, or between the methods of philosophy and the methods of science? Unlike some philosophers we do not find philosophy and the methods of philosophy to be sui generis. Science, and in particular neuroscience, has much to tell us about the nature of the world and the concepts that we must use to understand and explain it. Yet science cannot function well without reflective analysis of the concepts, methods, and practices that constitute it. Fo…Read more
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40Clarity, charity and criticism, wit, wisdom and worldliness: Avoiding intellectual impositions (review)Metascience 9 (3): 347-498. 2000.
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38Motion and Time, Space and Matter: Interrelations in the History of Philosophy and SciencePhilosophical Review 88 (1): 122-124. 1979.
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37Neuroscienze e natura della filosofiaIride: Filosofia e Discussione Pubblica 18 (3): 495-514. 2005.
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36Athens-pittsburgh symposium in the history and philosophy of science and technologyPerspectives on Science 12 (3): 243-243. 2004.
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36Knowing causes: Descartes on the world of matterPhilosophica 76 (2). 2005.In this essay, we discuss how Descartes arrives at his mature view of material causation. Descartes position changes over time in some very radical ways. The last section spells out his final position as to how causation works in the world of material objects. When considering Descartes causal theories, it is useful to distinguish between vertical and horizontal causation. The vertical perspective addresses Gods relation to creation. God is essential being, and every being other than God …Read more
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Aesthetics |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
General Philosophy of Science |