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211Wisdom-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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474Wisdom 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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1613Induction 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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596Even 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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1545From 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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538Can Humanity Learn to Create a Better World? The Crisis of Science without WisdomIn Tom Bentley & Daniel Stedman Jones (eds.), The Moral Universe, Demos. 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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577Special relativity, time, probabilism, and ultimate realityIn Dennis Geert Bernardus Johan Dieks (ed.), The ontology of spacetime, Elsevier. 2006.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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690The 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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1085Can 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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733Are 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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1155Quantum 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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686Towards 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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1135A priori conjectural knowledge in physics: The comprehensibility of the universeIn Michael J. Shaffer & Michael L. Veber (eds.), What Place for the A Priori?, Open Court. pp. 211-240. 2011.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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411Methodological problems of neuroscienceIn David Rose & Vernon G. 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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657Particle 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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2179What 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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29What 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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505The 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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841Creating 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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881Taking 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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564In this paper I sketch a liberal studies course designed to explore our fundamental problem of thought and life: How can our human world exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? The fundamental character of this problem provides one with the opportunity to explore a wide range of issues. What does physics tell us about the universe and ourselves? How do we account for everything physics leaves out? How can living brains be conscious? If everything occurs in accord…Read more
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761Does Science Provide Us with the Methodological Key to Wisdom?Philosophia, First Part of 'Arguing for Wisdom in the University' 40 (4): 664-673. 2012.Science provides us with the methodological key to wisdom. This idea goes back to the 18th century French Enlightenment. Unfortunately, in developing the idea, the philosophes of the Enlightenment made three fundamental blunders: they failed to characterize the progress-achieving methods of science properly, they failed to generalize these methods properly, and they failed to develop social inquiry as social methodology having, as its basic task, to get progress-achieving methods, generalized …Read more
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255The Menace of Science without WisdomEthical Record 117 (9): 10-15. 2012.We urgently need to bring about a revolution in the aims and methods of science – and of academic inquiry more generally. Instead of giving priority to the search for knowledge, universities need to devote themselves to seeking and promoting wisdom by rational means, wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, wisdom thus including knowledge, understanding and technological know-how, but much else besides. A basic task ought to be to help humanity learn…Read more
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333Wisdom and curiosity? I remember them wellThe Times Higher Education Supplement (1,488): 14. 2001.Academic inquiry has two basic inter-related aims. One is to explore intellectually aspects of our world of intrinsic interest and value, for its own sake, and to encourage non-academics to participate in such exploration, thus improving our knowledge and understanding. The other is, by intellectual means, to help humanity solve its problems of living, so that a more peaceful, just, democratic and environmentally enlightened world may be attained. Both are at present betrayed.
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291Do philosophers love wisdom?The Philosophers' Magazine 22 22-24. 2003.An academic enterprise that sought to promote human welfare rationally would give intellectual priority to tackling problems of living, including global problems, and would take the basic aim to be to seek and promote wisdom. Universities today, devoted to the pursuit of knowledge - insofar as they are not devoted to money - when judged from the standpoint of promoting human welfare, betray reason, and as a result betray humanity. Why? Because a bad philosophy of inquiry is built into the int…Read more
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612“Are There Objective ValuesThe Dalhousie Review 79 (3): 301-317. 1999.In this paper I demolish three influential arguments - moral, metaphysical and epistemological - against value realism. We have good reasons to believe, and no good reasons not to believe, that value-features, value-facts, really do exist in the world.
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509SimplicityPhilsci Archive. 2000.There are two problems of simplicity. What does it mean to characterize a scientific theory as simple, unified or explanatory in view of the fact that a simple theory can always be made complex (and vice versa) by a change of terminology? How is preference in science for simple theories to be justified? In this paper I put forward a proposal as to how the first problem is to be solved. The more nearly the totality of fundamental physical theory exemplifies the metaphysical thesis that the univer…Read more
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188The Generalized Darwinian Research ProgrammeIn From Knowledge to Wisdom. pp. 269-275. 2009.The generalized Darwinian research programme accepts physicalism, but holds that all life is purposive in character. It seeks to understand how and why all purposiveness has evolved in the universe – especially purposiveness associated with what we value most in human life, such as sentience, consciousness, person-to-person understanding, science, art, free¬dom, love. As evolution proceeds, the mechanisms of evolution themselves evolve to take into account the increasingly important role that …Read more
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484Cutting God in HalfPhilosophy Now 35 (35): 22-25. 2002.In order to solve the problem of the monstrous acts that an all-powerful, all-knowing God would daily be performing, we need to sever the God of Power from the God of Value. The former is the underlying dynamic unity in the physical universe, eternal, omnipresent, all-powerful, but an It, and thus not capable of knowing what It does. It can be forgiven the terrible things It does. The latter is what is of most value associated with our human world - or the world of sentient life more generall…Read more
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