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101Internalism, Externalism, and the KK PrincipleErkenntnis 86 (6): 1-20. 2019.This paper examines the relationship between the KK principle and the epistemological theses of externalism and internalism. In particular we examine arguments from Okasha :80–86, 2013) and Greco :169–197, 2014) which deny that we can derive the denial of the KK principle from externalism.
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93The aim of belief and the aim of scienceTheoria. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science 34 (2): 171. 2019.I argue that the constitutive aim of belief and the constitutive aim of science are both knowledge. The ‘aim of belief’, understood as the correctness conditions of belief, is to be identified with the product of properly functioning cognitive systems. Science is an institution that is the social functional analogue of a cognitive system, and its aim is the same as that of belief. In both cases it is knowledge rather than true belief that is the product of proper functioning.
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186Understanding the replication crisis as a base rate fallacyBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 000-000. 2018.
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280Against CreativityPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 99 (3): 694-713. 2019.Creativity is typically defined as a disposition to produce valuable ideas. We argue that this is a mistake and defend a new definition of creativity in terms of the imagination. It follows that creativity has instrumental value at most and then only in the right circumstances. We consider the role of tradition and judgment in worthwhile creativity and argue that there is frequently a tension between greater creativity and the production of value.
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134I—Fundamental Powers, Evolved Powers, and Mental PowersAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 92 (1): 247-275. 2018.Powers have in recent years become a central component of many philosophers’ ontology of properties. While I have argued that powers exist at the fundamental level of properties, many other theorists of powers hold that there are also non-fundamental powers. In this paper I articulate my reasons for being sceptical about the existing reasons for holding that there are non-fundamental powers. However, I also want to promote a different argument for the existence of a certain class of non-fundamen…Read more
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234What can cognitive science tell us about scientific revolutions?Theoria 27 (3): 293-321. 2012.Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions is notable for the readiness with which it drew on the results of cognitive psychology. These naturalistic elements were not well received and Kuhn did not subsequently develop them in his pub- lished work. Nonetheless, in a philosophical climate more receptive to naturalism, we are able to give a more positive evaluation of Kuhn’s proposals. Recently, philosophers such as Nersessian, Nickles, Andersen, Barker, and Chen have used the results of work on …Read more
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33Antidotes all the way down?Theoria 19 (3): 259-269. 2010.This paper explores the question: can fundamental dispositions suffer from finks and antidotes? I use my response to shed light on the question: can the fundamental laws of physics be ceteris paribus laws?
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20Philosophy of Science a Unified Approach, written by Gerhard SchurzGrazer Philosophische Studien 94 (4): 638-640. 2017._ Source: _Page Count 5
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65Review of Philosophy of Science a Unified Approach, by Gerhard Schurz (review)Grazer Philosophische Studien. forthcoming.Review of Gerhard Schurz's Philosophy of Science - A Unified Approach. Routledge, Abingdon 2014
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204Evidence and InferencePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 96 (2): 299-317. 2018.I articulate a functional characterisation of the concept of evidence, according to which evidence is that which allows us to make inferences that extend our knowledge. This entails Williamson's equation of knowledge with evidence.
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60Systematicity, knowledge, and bias. How systematicity made clinical medicine a scienceSynthese 196 (3): 863-879. 2019.This paper shows that the history of clinical medicine in the eighteenth century supports Paul Hoyningen-Huene’s thesis that there is a correlation between science and systematicity. For example, James Jurin’s assessment of the safety of variolation as a protection against smallpox adopted a systematic approach to the assessment of interventions in order to eliminate sources of cognitive bias that would compromise inquiry. Clinical medicine thereby became a science. I use this confirming instanc…Read more
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8Review of Craig Dilworth: The Metaphysics of Science (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (2): 284-286. 1997.
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9Further Antidotes: a Response to GundersenPhilosophical Quarterly 50 (199): 229-233. 2000.In my ‘Dispositions and Antidotes’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 48, I raise an objection to the conditional analysis of dispositions, both in its simple formulation and in a more sophisticated version due to David Lewis, The Philosophical Quarterly, 47. The objection suggests that a disposition may be continuously present and the appropriate stimulus occur without the manifestation occurring, because some outside influence, an antidote, interferes. Gundersen in The Philosophical Quarterly, 50, …Read more
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209Scientific progress as accumulation of knowledge: a reply to RowbottomStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 39 (2): 279-281. 2008.I defend my view that scientific progress is constituted by the accumulation of knowledge against a challenge from Rowbottom in favour of the semantic view that it is only truth that is relevant to progress.Keywords: Scientific progress; Knowledge; Aim of inquiry; Darrell Rowbottom.
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73IntroductionSynthese 149 (3): 445-450. 2006.This volume contains essays by five British philosophers and one Swedish philosopher working in metaphysics and in particular metaphysics as it relates to the philosophy of science. These philosophers are the core of a tight network of European philosophers of science and metaphysicians and their essays have evolved as a result of workshops in Lund, Edinburgh, and Athens.
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85Fred Gifford (ed.): Philosophy of Medicine (review)Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 34 (1): 53-57. 2013.
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96The logic in logicismDialogue 36 (2): 341--60. 1997.Frege's logicism consists of two theses: the truths of arithmetic are truths of logic; the natural numbers are objects. In this paper I pose the question: what conception of logic is required to defend these theses? I hold that there exists an appropriate and natural conception of logic in virtue of which Hume's principle is a logical truth. Hume's principle, which states that the number of Fs is the number of Gs iff the concepts F and G are equinumerous is the central plank in the neo-logicist …Read more
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23Inference to the Only ExplanationPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (2): 424-432. 2007.
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159Philosophy of ScienceMcgill-Queen's University Press. 1998.Many introductions to this field start with the problem of justifying scientific knowledge but Alexander Bird begins by examining the subject matter, or metaphysics, of science. Using topical scientific debates he vividly elucidates what it is for the world to be governed by laws of nature. This idea provides the basis for explanations and causes and leads to a discussion of natural kinds and theoretical entities. With this foundation in place he goes on to consider the epistemological issues of…Read more
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168Is evidence non-inferential?Philosophical Quarterly 54 (215). 2004.Evidence is often taken to be foundational, in that while other propositions may be inferred from our evidence, evidence propositions are themselves not inferred from anything. I argue that this conception is false, since the non-inferential propositions on which beliefs are ultimately founded may be forgotten or undermined in the course of enquiry.
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516Necessarily, salt dissolves in waterAnalysis 61 (4). 2001.In this paper I aim to show that a certain law of nature, namely that common salt (sodium chloride) dissolves in water, is metaphysically necessary. The importance of this result is that it conflicts with a widely shared intuition that the laws of nature (most if not all) are contingent. There have been debates over whether some laws, such as Newton’s second law, might be definitional of their key terms and hence necessary. But the law that salt dissolves in water is not that kind of law. The law …Read more
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445The dispositionalist conception of lawsFoundations of Science 10 (4): 353-70. 2005.This paper sketches a dispositionalist conception of laws and shows how the dispositionalist should respond to certain objections. The view that properties are essentially dispositional is able to provide an account of laws that avoids the problems that face the two views of laws (the regularity and the contingent nomic necessitation views) that regard properties as categorical and laws as contingent. I discuss and reject the objections that (i) this view makes laws necessary whereas they are co…Read more
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258Eliminative abduction: examples from medicineStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 41 (4): 345-352. 2010.Peter Lipton argues that inference to the best explanation involves the selection of a hypothesis on the basis of its loveliness. I argue that in optimal cases of IBE we may be able to eliminate all but one of the hypotheses. In such cases we have a form of eliminative induction takes place, which I call ‘Holmesian inference’. I argue that Lipton’s example in which Ignaz Semmelweis identified a cause of puerperal fever better illustrates Holmesian inference than Liptonian IBE. I consider in deta…Read more
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