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64Meaning relations and modalitiesNoûs 3 (2): 155-167. 1969.Modalities explained through the idea of a logical space
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60Calibration: A Frequency Justification for Personal ProbabilityIn Robert S. Cohen & Larry Laudan (eds.), Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Essays in Honor of Adolf Grünbaum, D. Reidel. 1983.
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59Science, Materialism, and False ConsciousnessIn Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology: Essays in Honor of Alvin Plantinga's Theory of Knowledge, Rowman Littlefield. pp. 149-182. 1996.As activity, science has become a large-scale cultural phenomenon. As product, it is drawn on by industry, agriculture, and medicine, thus affecting not only the scene of its activity but all the rest of the world as well. Western philosophy has always harboured a tradition which regards scientific inquiry as a paradigm for rational inquiry in general. Yet almost every philosopher in that tradition has pointed to limits of this paradigm and its scope
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54Theory Construction and Experiment: An Empiricist ViewPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1980 663-678. 1980.This paper focuses on the empiricism/realism debate. The initial portion of the paper is a short sketch of the nature of the enterprise of philosophy of science. What are taken as empiricist views on theory construction and experiment are described. The paper concludes with a simple recasting of the main points at issue in the empiricism/realism debate
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53Rational Belief and Probability KinematicsPhilosophy of Science 47 (2): 165-. 1980.A general form is proposed for epistemological theories, the relevant factors being: the family of epistemic judgments, the epistemic state, the epistemic commitment , and the family of possible epistemic inputs . First a simple theory is examined in which the states are probability functions, and the subject of probability kinematics introduced by Richard Jeffrey is explored. Then a second theory is examined in which the state has as constituents a body of information and a recipe that determin…Read more
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53Critical Notice of Brian Ellis, Rational Belief Systems (review)Canadian Journal of Philosophy 10 (3): 497-511. 1980.
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52Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind (review)Canadian Journal of Philosophy 11 (3): 555-567. 1981.
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52Thomason’s Paradox for Belief, and Two Consequence RelationsJournal of Philosophical Logic 40 (1). 2011.Thomason (1979/2010)'s argument against competence psychologism in semantics envisages a representation of a subject's competence as follows: he understands his own language in the sense that he can identify the semantic content of each of its sentences, which requires that the relation between expression and content be recursive. Then if the scientist constructs a theory that is meant to represent the body of the subject's beliefs, construed as assent to the content of the pertinent sentences, …Read more
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51On the Radical Incompleteness of the Manifest ImagePSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1976 335-343. 1976.
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49The pragmatic theory of explanationIn Joseph C. Pitt (ed.), Theories of Explanation, Oxford University Press. 1988.
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49On Taking Stances: An interview with Bas van FraassenThe Harvard Review of Philosophy 13 (2): 86-102. 2005.
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48Logical Structure In Plato's "Sophist"Review of Metaphysics 22 (3): 482-498. 1969.The most important point about Plato's terminology in the Sophist is Cornford's: "Plato, here as elsewhere, wisely refuses to let any one metaphor to harden into a technical term." Since the wisdom of this course of action rests on the degree to which it satisfies Plato's purposes, we may not be disrespectful in hardening these metaphors for the purposes of our discussion.
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48The peculiar effects of love and desireIn Brian P. McLaughlin & Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (eds.), Perspectives on Self-Deception, University of California Press. pp. 123-156. 1988.
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46The day of the dolphins: Puzzling over epistemic partnershipIn Kent A. Peacock & Andrew D. Irvine (eds.), Mistakes of reason: essays in honour of John Woods, University of Toronto Press. pp. 111-133. 2005.
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45Probabilistic semantics objectified: I. Postulates and logics (review)Journal of Philosophical Logic 10 (3). 1981.
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45Michel Ghins on the Empirical Versus the TheoreticalFoundations of Physics 30 (10): 1655-1661. 2000.Michel Ghins and I are both empiricists, and agree significantly in our critique of “traditional” empiricist epistemology. We differ however in some respects in our interpretation of the scientific enterprise. Ghins argues for a moderate scientific realism which includes the view that acceptance of a scientific theory will bring with it belief in the existence of all those entities, among the entities the theory postulates, that satisfy certain criteria. For Ghins these criteria derive from the …Read more
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44A Defence of van Fraassen’s Critique of Abductive Inference: Reply to PsillosPhilosophical Quarterly 47 (188): 305-321. 1997.
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43Symmetry Arguments in Probability KinematicsPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1984 851-869. 1984.Probability kinematics is the theory of how subjective probabilities change with time, in response to certain constraints . Rules are classified by the imposed constraints for which the rules prescribe a procedure for updating one's opinion. The first is simple conditionalization , and the second Jeffrey conditionalization . It is demonstrated by a symmetry argument that these rules are the unique admissible rules for those constraints, and moreover, that any probability kinematic rule must be e…Read more
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