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823The Enlightenment Programme and Karl PopperIn I. I. Jarvie, K. Milford & D. Miller (eds.), Karl Popper: A Centenary Assessment. Volume 1: Life and Times, Values in a World of Facts, Ashgate. 2006.Popper first developed his theory of scientific method – falsificationism – in his The Logic of Scientific Discovery, then generalized it to form critical rationalism, which he subsequently applied to social and political problems in The Open Society and Its Enemies. All this can be regarded as constituting a major development of the 18th century Enlightenment programme of learning from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards a better world. Falsificationism is, however, def…Read more
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35The fate of the enlightenment: Reply to KekesInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 29 (1-4): 79-92. 1986.If humanity is to learn how to live together more cooperatively and wisely than at present, it is essential that we create a new kind of academic inquiry and education that is rationally devoted to helping us learn how to be cooperative and wise. This new kind of inquiry would give intellectual priority to articulating our problems of living, proposing and criticizing possible solutions, possible cooperative actions. The pursuit of knowledge would play a subordinate role. This in essence is the …Read more
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651Cutting God in Half argues that, in order to tackle climate change, world poverty, extinction of species and our other global problems rather better than we are doing at present we need to bring about a revolution in science, and in academia more generally. We need to put our problems of living – personal, social, global – at the heart of the academic enterprise. How our human world, imbued with meaning and value, can exist and best flourish embedded in the physical universe is, the book argue…Read more
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284An Idea to Save the WorldSublime (17): 90-93. 2009.Here is an idea that just might save the world. It is that science, properly understood, provides us with the methodological key to the salvation of humanity.
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471On relativity theory and openness of the futurePhilosophy of Science 60 (2): 341-348. 1993.In a recent paper, Howard Stein makes a number of criticisms of an earlier paper of mine ('Are Probabilism and Special Relativity Incompatible?', Phil. Sci., 1985), which explored the question of whether the idea that the future is genuinely 'open' in a probabilistic universe is compatible with special relativity. I disagree with almost all of Stein's criticisms.
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1024Relativity Theory may not have the last Word on the Nature of Time: Quantum Theory and ProbabilismIn Giancarlo Ghirardi & Shyam Wuppuluri (eds.), Space, Time and the Limits of Human Understanding, Imprint: Springer. pp. 109-124. 2016.Two radically different views about time are possible. According to the first, the universe is three dimensional. It has a past and a future, but that does not mean it is spread out in time as it is spread out in the three dimensions of space. This view requires that there is an unambiguous, absolute, cosmic-wide "now" at each instant. According to the second view about time, the universe is four dimensional. It is spread out in both space and time - in space-time in short. Special and gen…Read more
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206Wisdom-inquiryThe Philosophers' Magazine 50 84-85. 2010.The most exciting and important new philosophical idea of the past decade, in my view, is the discovery that we urgently need to bring about a revolution in science, and in academic inquiry more generally, so that the basic intellectual aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom. We urgently need to transform our schools and universities so that they become rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to tackle our grave global problems, and thus make progress towards as good a world as possibl…Read more
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380Aim-oriented empiricism: David Miller's critiquePhilsci Archive. 2006.For three decades I have expounded and defended aim-oriented empiricism, a view of science which, l claim, solves a number of problems in the philosophy of science and has important implications for science itself and, when generalized, for the whole of academic inquiry, and for our capacity to solve our current global problems. Despite these claims, the view has received scant attention from philosophers of science. Recently, however, David Miller has criticized the view. Miller’s criticisms ar…Read more
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1195Karl Raimund PopperIn Leemon McHenry, P. Dematteis & P. Fosl (eds.), British Philosophers, 1800-2000, Bruccoli Clark Layman. pp. 176-194. 2002.Karl Popper is the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. No other philosopher of the period has produced a body of work that is as significant. What is best in Popper's output is contained in his first four published books. These tackle fundamental problems with ferocious, exemplary integrity, clarity, simplicity and originality. They have widespread, fruitful implications, for science, for philosophy, for the social sciences, for education, for art, for politics and political philosophy. Th…Read more
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1035Instead of Particles and Fields: A Micro Realistic Quantum "Smearon" TheoryFoundatioins of Physics 12 (6): 607-631. 1982.A fully micro realistic, propensity version of quantum theory is proposed, according to which fundamental physical entities - neither particles nor fields - have physical characteristics which determine probabilistically how they interact with one another . The version of quantum "smearon" theory proposed here does not modify the equations of orthodox quantum theory: rather, it gives a radically new interpretation to these equations. It is argued that there are strong general reasons for preferr…Read more
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463Wisdom MathematicsFriends of Wisdom Newsletter (6): 1-6. 2010.For over thirty years I have argued that all branches of science and scholarship would have both their intellectual and humanitarian value enhanced if pursued in accordance with the edicts of wisdom-inquiry rather than knowledge-inquiry. I argue that this is true of mathematics. Viewed from the perspective of knowledge-inquiry, mathematics confronts us with two fundamental problems. (1) How can mathematics be held to be a branch of knowledge, in view of the difficulties that view engenders? …Read more
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1596Induction and scientific realism: Einstein versus Van Fraassen part one: How to solve the problem of inductionBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (1): 61-79. 1993.In this three-part paper, my concern is to expound and defend a conception of science, close to Einstein's, which I call aim-oriented empiricism. I argue that aim-oriented empiricsim has the following virtues. (i) It solve the problem of induction; (ii) it provides decisive reasons for rejecting van Fraassen's brilliantly defended but intuitively implausible constructive empiricism; (iii) it solves the problem of verisimilitude, the problem of explicating what it can mean to speak of scientifi…Read more
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24From Knowledge to Wisdom: Guiding Choices in Scientific Research.Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 4 (4). 1984.This article argues for the need to put into practice a profound and comprehensive intellectual revolution, affecting to a greater or lesser extent all branches of scientific and technological research, scholarship and education. This intellectual revolution differs, however, from the now familiar kind of scientific revolution described by Kuhn. It does not primarily involve a radical change in what we take to be knowledge about some aspect of the world, a change of paradigm. Rather it involves …Read more
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586Even though evidence underdetermines theory, often in science one theory only is regarded as acceptable in the light of the evidence. This suggests there are additional unacknowledged assumptions which constrain what theories are to be accepted. In the case of physics, these additional assumptions are metaphysical theses concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe. Rigour demands that these implicit assumptions be made explicit within science, so that they can be critically …Read more
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682The Problem of Measurement - Real or Imaginary?American Journal of Physics 41 1022-5. 1973.It is argued that criticisms of Willian Band and James Park concerning the quantum mechanics measurement problem do not succeed.
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1599From knowledge to wisdom: a revolution for science and the humanitiesPentire Press. 2007.From Knowledge to Wisdom argues that there is an urgent need, for both intellectual and humanitarian reasons, to bring about a revolution in science and the humanities. The outcome would be a kind of academic inquiry rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to create a better world. Instead of giving priority to solving problems of knowledge, as at present, academia would devote itself to helping us solve our immense, current global problems – climate change, war, poverty, population gro…Read more
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532Can Humanity Learn to Create a Better World? The Crisis of Science without WisdomIn Tom Bentley & Daniel Stedman Jones (eds.), The Moral Universe, . 2001.Can we learn to create a better world? Yes, if we first create traditions and institutions of learning rationally devoted to that end. At present universities all over the world are dominated by the idea that the basic aim of academic inquiry is to acquire knowledge. Such a conception of inquiry, judged from the standpoint of helping us learn wisdom and civilization, is grotesquely and damagingly irrational. We need to change our approach to academic enterprise if we are to create a kind of …Read more
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567Special relativity, time, probabilism, and ultimate realityIn D. Dieks (ed.), The Ontology of Spacetime, Elsevier, B. V. 2004.McTaggart distinguished two conceptions of time: the A-series, according to which events are either past, present or future; and the B-series, according to which events are merely earlier or later than other events. Elsewhere, I have argued that these two views, ostensibly about the nature of time, need to be reinterpreted as two views about the nature of the universe. According to the so-called A-theory, the universe is three dimensional, with a past and future; according to the B-theory, the u…Read more
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1079Can there be necessary connections between successive events?British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 19 (1): 1-25. 1968.THE aim of this paper is to refute Hume's contention that there cannot be logically necessary connections between successive events. I intend to establish, in other words, not 'Logically necessary connections do exist between successive events', but instead the rather more modest proposition: 'It may be, it is possible, as far as we can ever know for certain, that logically necessary connections do exist between successive events.' Towards the end of the paper I shall say something about the im…Read more
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727Are Philosophers Responsible for Global Warming?Philosophy Now 65 (65): 12-13. 2008.The suggestion that philosophers are responsible for global warming seems, on the face of it, absurd. However, that we might cause global warming has been known for over a century. If we had had in existence a more rigorous kind of academic inquiry devoted to promoting human welfare, giving priority to problems of living, humanity might have become aware of the dangers of global warming long ago, and might have taken steps to meet these dangers decades ago. That we do not have academic inquir…Read more
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1139Quantum propensiton theory: A testable resolution of the wave/particle dilemmaBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (1): 1-50. 1988.In this paper I put forward a new micro realistic, fundamentally probabilistic, propensiton version of quantum theory. According to this theory, the entities of the quantum domain - electrons, photons, atoms - are neither particles nor fields, but a new kind of fundamentally probabilistic entity, the propensiton - entities which interact with one another probabilistically. This version of quantum theory leaves the Schroedinger equation unchanged, but reinterprets it to specify how propensitons…Read more
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655Towards a Micro Realistic Version of Quantum Mechanics, Part IFoundations of Physics 6 (3): 275-292. 1976.This paper investigates the possibiity of developing a fully micro realistic version of elementary quantum mechanics. I argue that it is highly desirable to develop such a version of quantum mechanics, and that the failure of all current versions and interpretations of quantum mechanics to constitute micro realistic theories is at the root of many of the interpretative problems associated with quantum mechanics, in particular the problem of measurement. I put forward a propensity micro realist…Read more
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2203What ought to be the aims of science? How can science best serve humanity? What would an ideal science be like, a science that is sensitively and humanely responsive to the needs, problems and aspirations of people? How ought the institutional enterprise of science to be related to the rest of society? What ought to be the relationship between science and art, thought and feeling, reason and desire, mind and heart? Should the social sciences model themselves on the natural sciences: or ought the…Read more
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1160A priori conjectural knowledge in physics: The comprehensibility of the universeIn Michael Veber & Michael Shaffer (eds.), What Place for the A Priori?, Open Court. pp. 211-240. 2005.In this paper I argue for a priori conjectural scientific knowledge about the world. Physics persistently only accepts unified theories, even though endlessly many empirically more successful disunified rivals are always available. This persistent preference for unified theories, against empirical considerations, means that physics makes a substantial, persistent metaphysical assumption, to the effect that the universe has a (more or less) unified dynamic structure. In order to clarify what this…Read more
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403Methodological problems of neuroscienceIn David Rose & G. Vernon Dobson (eds.), Models of the Visual Cortex, Wiley. 1985.In this paper I argue that neuroscience has been harmed by the widespread adoption of seriously inadequate methodologies or philosophies of science - most notably inductivism and falsificationism. I argue that neuroscience, in seeking to understand the human brain and mind, needs to follow in the footsteps of evolution.
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645Particle Creation as the Quantum Condition for Probabilistic Events to OccurPhysics Letters A 187 (2 May 1994): 351-355. 1994.A new version of quantum theory is proposed, according to which probabilistic events occur whenever new statioinary or bound states are created as a result of inelastic collisions. The new theory recovers the experimental success of orthodox quantum theory, but differs form the orthodox theory for as yet unperformed experiments.
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31What the Task of Creating Civilization has to Learn from the Success of Modern Science: Towards a New EnlightenmentReflections on Higher Education 4 47-69. 1992.Modern scientific, academic inquiry suffers from a serious, wholesale fundamental defect. Though very successful at improving specialized scientific knowledge and technological know-how, it is an intellectual and human disaster when it comes to helping us realize what is of value in life - in particlar, when it comes to helping us create a more enlightened, civilized world
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500The world faces grave global problems. These have been made possible by modern science and technology. We have put knowledge-inquiry into academic practice – a seriously irrational kind of inquiry that seeks knowledge and technological know-how dissociated from a more fundamental concern to seek and promote wisdom. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in academic inquiry, so that knowledge-inquiry becomes wisdom-inquiry – a kind of inquiry rationally designed and devoted to helping hu…Read more
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834Creating a Better World: Towards the University of WisdomIn Ronald Barnett (ed.), The Future University: Ideas and Possibilities, Routledge. 2011.Universities need to change dramatically in order to help humanity make progress towards as good a world as possible.
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865Taking the Nature of God SeriouslyIn Asa Kasher & Jeanine Diller (eds.), Models of God and Other Ultimate Realities, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2013.Once it is appreciated that it is not possible for an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God to exist, the important question arises: What does exist that is closest to, and captures the best of what is in, the traditional conception of God? In this paper I set out to answer that question. The first step that needs to be taken is to sever the God-of-cosmic-power from the God-of-cosmic-value. The first is Einstein’s God, the underlying dynamic unity in the physical universe which physics se…Read more
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