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128Against Moral TruthsCultura 9 (1): 179-194. 2012.I criticize the following three arguments for moral objectivism. 1. Since we assess moral statements, we can arrive at some moral truths (Thomson, 2006). 2. One culture can be closer to truths than another in moral matters because the former can be closer to truths than the latter in scientific matters (Pojman, 2008). 3. A moral judgment is shown to be true when it is backed up by reason (Rachels and Rachels, 2010). Finally, I construct a dilemma against the view that there are moral truths and …Read more
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354Scientific Antirealists Have Set Fire to Their Own HousesProlegomena 16 (1): 23-37. 2017.Scientific antirealists run the argument from underconsideration against scientific realism. I argue that the argument from underconsideration backfires on antirealists’ positive philosophical theories, such as the contextual theory of explanation (van Fraassen, 1980), the English model of rationality (van Fraassen, 1989), the evolutionary explanation of the success of science (Wray, 2008; 2012), and explanatory idealism (Khalifa, 2013). Antirealists strengthen the argument from underconsiderati…Read more
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429How to Foster Scientists' CreativityCreativity Studies 9 (2): 117-126. 2016.Scientific progress can be credited to creative scientists, who constantly ideate new theories and experiments. I explore how the three central positions in philosophy of science – scientific realism, scientific pessimism, and instrumentalism – are related to the practical issue of how scientists’ creativity can be fostered. I argue that realism encourages scientists to entertain new theories and experiments, pessimism discourages them from doing so, and instrumentalism falls in between realism …Read more
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203A Pessimistic Induction against Scientific AntirealismOrganon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 21 (1): 3-21. 2014.There are nine antirealist explanations of the success of science in the literature. I raise difficulties against all of them except the latest one, and then construct a pessimistic induction that the latest one will turn out to be problematic because its eight forerunners turned out to be problematic. This pessimistic induction is on a par with the traditional pessimistic induction that successful present scientific theories will be revealed to be false because successful past scientific theori…Read more
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351Defense of Epistemic ReciprocalismFilosofija. Sociologija 28 (1): 56-64. 2017.Scientific realists and antirealists believe that a successful scientific theory is true and merely empirically adequate, respectively. In contrast, epistemic reciprocalists believe that realists’ positive theories are true, and that antirealists’ positive theories are merely empirically adequate, treating their target agents as their target agents treat other epistemic agents. Antirealists cannot convince reciprocalists that their positive theories are true, no matter how confident they might b…Read more
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816Why Should We Be Pessimistic about Antirealists and Pessimists?Foundations of Science 22 (3): 613-625. 2017.The pessimistic induction over scientific theories holds that present theories will be overthrown as were past theories. The pessimistic induction over scientists holds that present scientists cannot conceive of future theories just as past scientists could not conceive of present theories. The pessimistic induction over realists :4321–4330, 2013) holds that present realists are wrong about present theories just as past realists were wrong about past theories. The pessimistic induction over anti…Read more
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648Refutations of the Two Pessimistic InductionsPhilosophia 44 (3): 835-844. 2016.Both the pessimistic inductions over scientific theories and over scientists are built upon what I call proportional pessimism: as theories are discarded, the inductive rationale for concluding that the next theories will be discarded grows stronger. I argue that proportional pessimism clashes with the fact that present theories are more successful than past theories, and with the implications of the assumptions that there are finitely and infinitely many unconceived alternatives. Therefore, the…Read more
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1443Defence of Cultural RelativismCultura 8 (1): 159-170. 2011.I attempt to rebut the following standard objections against cultural relativism: 1. It is self-defeating for a cultural relativist to take the principle of tolerance as absolute; 2. There are universal moral rules, contrary to what cultural relativism claims; 3. If cultural relativism were true, Hitler’s genocidal actions would be right, social reformers would be wrong to go against their own culture, moral progress would be impossible, and an atrocious crime could be made moral by forming a cu…Read more
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66The Doxastic Requirement of Scientific Explanation and UnderstandingProlegomena 13 (2): 279-290. 2014.Van Fraassen (1980) and Winther (2009) claim that we can explain phenomena in terms of scientific theories without believing that they are true. I argue that we ought to believe that they are true in order to use them to explain and understand phenomena. A scientific antirealist who believes that scientific theories are merely empirically adequate cannot use them to explain or to understand phenomena. The mere belief that they are empirically adequate produces neither explanation nor understandi…Read more
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46An Evolutionary Account of Cyclic Shifts in Women’s Mate PreferencesJournal of Studies in Social Sciences 4 (2): 262-274. 2013.According to some psychological studies, women approaching ovulation feel the increased desire to have short-term sexual affairs with “sexy cads” while they are in long-term relations with “good dads.” I argue that this psychological property is a vestige of our evolutionary history. Early hominid females occasionally acquired good genes from top-ranking males while they were in long-term relations with low-ranking males. The Paleolithic living conditions indicate that women with the foregoing p…Read more
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330Accepting Our Best Scientific TheoriesFilosofija. Sociologija 26 (3): 218-227. 2015.Dawes (2013) claims that we ought not to believe but to accept our best scientific theories. To accept them means to employ them as premises in our reasoning with the goal of attaining knowledge about unobservables. I reply that if we do not believe our best scientific theories, we cannot gain knowledge about unobservables, our opponents might dismiss the predictions derived from them, and we cannot use them to explain phenomena. We commit an unethical speech act when we explain a phenomenon in …Read more
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586To Be Scientific Is To Be InteractiveEuropean Journal of Science and Theology 12 (1): 77-86. 2016.Hempel, Popper, and Kuhn argue that to be scientific is to be testable, to be falsifiable, and most nearly to do normal science, respectively. I argue that to be scientific is largely to be interactive, offering some examples from science to show that the ideas from different fields of science interact with one another. The results of the interactions are that hypotheses become more plausible, new phenomena are explained and predicted, we understand phenomena from a new perspective, and our worl…Read more
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536In Defense of Mathematical InferentialismAnalysis and Metaphysics 16 70-83. 2017.I defend a new position in philosophy of mathematics that I call mathematical inferentialism. It holds that a mathematical sentence can perform the function of facilitating deductive inferences from some concrete sentences to other concrete sentences, that a mathematical sentence is true if and only if all of its concrete consequences are true, that the abstract world does not exist, and that we acquire mathematical knowledge by confirming concrete sentences. Mathematical inferentialism has seve…Read more
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125Approximate Truth vs. Empirical AdequacyEpistemologia 37 (1): 106-118. 2014.Suppose that scientific realists believe that a successful theory is approximately true, and that constructive empiricists believe that it is empirically adequate. Whose belief is more likely to be false? The problem of underdetermination does not yield an answer to this question one way or the other, but the pessimistic induction does. The pessimistic induction, if correct, indicates that successful theories, both past and current, are empirically inadequate. It is arguable, however, that they …Read more
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321Evolutionary Explanation of PsychopathsInternational Journal of Social Science Studies 1 (2): 1-7. 2013.Psychopaths are brutal individuals, having no empathetic concern for others. Initially, the existence of psychopaths seems to be a mystery from an evolutionary point of view. On close examination, however, it can be accommodated by evolutionary theory. Brutal individuals excelled meek individuals in the desperate circumstances where they had to fight their competitors over natural resources for survival and reproduction. This evolutionary explanation of psychopaths receives support from Pinker's…Read more
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883Does Scientific Progress Consist in Increasing Knowledge or Understanding?Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 48 (4): 569-579. 2017.Bird argues that scientific progress consists in increasing knowledge. Dellsén objects that increasing knowledge is neither necessary nor sufficient for scientific progress, and argues that scientific progress rather consists in increasing understanding. Dellsén also contends that unlike Bird’s view, his view can account for the scientific practices of using idealizations and of choosing simple theories over complex ones. I argue that Dellsén’s criticisms against Bird’s view fail, and that incre…Read more
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871Scientific Realism Versus Antirealism in Science EducationSantalka: Filosofija, Komunikacija 24 (1): 72-81. 2016.Scientific realists believe both what a scientific theory says about observables and unobservables. In contrast, scientific antirealists believe what a scientific theory says about observables, but not about unobservables. I argue that scientific realism is a more useful doctrine than scientific antirealism in science classrooms. If science teachers are antirealists, they are caught in Moore’s paradox when they help their students grasp the content of a scientific theory, and when they explain a…Read more
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583Explanatory Failures of Relative RealismEpistemologia 38 (1): 16-28. 2015.Scientific realism (Putnam 1975; Psillos 1999) and relative realism (Mizrahi 2013) claim that successful scientific theories are approximately true and comparatively true, respectively. A theory is approximately true if and only if it is close to the truth. A theory is comparatively true if and only if it is closer to the truth than its competitors are. I argue that relative realism is more skeptical about the claims of science than it initially appears to be and that it can explain neither the …Read more
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100Ontological Order in Scientific ExplanationPhilosophical Papers 32 (2): 157-170. 2003.A scientific theory is successful, according to Stanford (2000), because it is suficiently observationally similar to its corresponding true theory. The Ptolemaic theory, for example, is successful because it is sufficiently similar to the Copernican theory at the observational level. The suggestion meets the scientific realists' request to explain the success of science without committing to the (approximate) truth of successful scientific theories. I argue that Stanford's proposal has a concep…Read more
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620Against Mathematical ConvenientismAxiomathes 26 (2): 115-122. 2016.Indispensablists argue that when our belief system conflicts with our experiences, we can negate a mathematical belief but we do not because if we do, we would have to make an excessive revision of our belief system. Thus, we retain a mathematical belief not because we have good evidence for it but because it is convenient to do so. I call this view ‘ mathematical convenientism.’ I argue that mathematical convenientism commits the consequential fallacy and that it demolishes the Quine-Putnam ind…Read more
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96Against the Besire Theory of Moral JudgmentOrganon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 20 (1): 5-17. 2013.This paper critically examines two objections and raises a new objection against the besire theory of moral judgment. Firstly, Smith (1994) observes that a belief that p tends to expire whereas a desire that p tends to endure on the perception that not p. His observation does not refute the sophisticated version of the besire theory that to besire that p is to believe that p and to desire to act in accordance with the belief that p. Secondly, Zangwill (2008) claims that the strength of motivatio…Read more
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442The Problems of Divine Location and AgeEuropean Journal of Science and Theology 31 (2): 41-53. 2017.I develop two problems, which I call the problem of divine location and the problem of divine age, to challenge the theist belief that God created the universe. The problem of divine location holds that it is not clear where God existed before he created the universe. The problem of divine age holds that it is not clear how old God was when he created the universe. I explore several theist responses to these two problems, and argue that all of them are problematic under the existing conceptions …Read more
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831On the Relationship between Speech Acts and Psychological StatesPragmatics and Cognition 22 (3): 430-351. 2014.This paper defends a theory of speech act that I call concurrentism. It consists of the following three theses. 1. We believe, ceteris paribus, that other people’s speech acts concur with their beliefs. 2. Our speech acts, ceteris paribus, concur with our beliefs. 3. When our speech acts deviate from our beliefs, we do not, ceteris paribus, declare the deviations to other people. Concurrentism sheds light on what the hearer believes when he hears an indicative sentence, what the speaker believes…Read more
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779Cultural Relativism and the Theory of RelativityFilosofija. Sociologija 25 (1): 44-51. 2014.Cornea (2012) argues that I (2011) was wrong to use the analogy between morality and motion to defend cultural relativism. I reply that the analogy can be used to clarify what cultural relativism asserts and how a cultural relativist can reply to the criticisms against it. Ockham’s Razor favours the relativist view that there are no moral truths, and hence no culture is better than another. Contrary to what Cornea claims, cultural relativism does not entail that we cannot protect ourselves from …Read more
Seungbae Park
Ulsan National Institute Of Science And Technology
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Ulsan National Institute Of Science And TechnologyProfessor
Areas of Specialization
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
1 more
Philosophy of Religion |
Philosophy of Mathematics |
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Meta-Ethics |
Applied Ethics |