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7Scientific structuralism: Structuralism(s) about science: Some common problemsAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 81 (1). 2007.
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4Science, Probability, and the PropositionPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1994 339-348. 1994.In a traditional view of science we come to fully believe the main accepted theories . Some of the hypotheses "possible for all that science tells us" seem more likely than others: enter probability as grading the possibilities left open. Probabilism contends with this tradition. Richard Jeffrey told us never to resolve doubt but only to quantify it, and to give maximal probability only to tautologies. Despite severe difficulties, I shall argue that the traditional view is reconcilable with prob…Read more
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24Structure: Its shadow and substanceBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (2): 275-307. 2006.Structural realism as developed by John Worrall and others can claim philosophical roots as far back as the late 19th century, though the discussion at that time does not unambiguously favor the contemporary form, or even its realism. After a critical examination of some aspects of the historical background some severe critical challenges to both Worrall's and Ladyman's versions are highlighted, and an alternative empiricist structuralism proposed. Support for this empiricist version is provided…Read more
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11Science as representation: Flouting the criteriaPhilosophy of Science 71 (5): 794-804. 2004.Criteria of adequacy for scientific representation of the phenomena pertain to accuracy and truth. But that representation is selective and may require distortion even in the selected parameters; this point is intimately connected with the fact that representation is intentional, and its adequacy relative to its particular purpose. Since observation and measurement are perspectival and the appearances to be saved are perspectival measurement outcomes, the question whether this “saving” is an exp…Read more
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59Science, Materialism, and False ConsciousnessIn Bas van Fraassen (ed.), 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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3II—Bas C. van Fraassen: Structuralism(s) about Science: Some Common ProblemsAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 81 (1): 45-61. 2007.
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2Relational quantum mechanics: Rovelli's worldDiscusiones Filosóficas 11 (17): 13-51. 2010.El inspirador Relational Quantum Mechanicsde Carlo Rovelli cumple varios propósitosde manera simultánea: proporciona unanueva visión de cómo es el mundo de lamecánica cuántica y ofrece un programapara derivar el formalismo de la teoría deun conjunto de postulados simples quepertenecen al procesamiento de la información.Enesteartículopropongoquenosconcentremostotalmente en lo primero,para explorar el mundo de la mecánicacuántica tal como lo representa Rovelli.Es un mundo fascinante, en parte debi…Read more
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Probability: The New Modality of ScienceIn C. Van Fraassen Bas (ed.), The scientific image, Oxford University Press. 1980.The Aristotelian tradition in science, dominant before the advent of modern science, saw real modalities in nature: necessity, possibility, contingency, potentiality, and essence. Throughout the modern period and the early twentieth century, empiricists struggled to maintain that there was nothing to be found between matters of actual fact on the one hand and relations between ideas or words on the other. Probability has the logical form of a modality, but until the twentieth century, it could b…Read more
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7Sola Experientia?—Feyerabend's Refutation of Classical EmpiricismPhilosophy of Science 64 (Supplement): 385-395. 1997.Feyerabend's “Classical Empiricism” draws on a 17th century Jesuit argument against Protestant fundamentalism. The argument is very general, and applies to any simple foundationalist epistemology. Feyerabend uses it against Classical Empiricism—roughly, the view that what is to be believed is exactly what experience establishes, and no more—which he identifies as among other things Newton's “dogmatic ideology.”
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5Reply to contessa, Ghins, and HealeyAnalysis 70 (3): 547-556. 2010.(No abstract is available for this citation)
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15Rovelli’s WorldFoundations of Physics 40 (4): 390-417. 2010.Carlo Rovelli’s inspiring “Relational Quantum Mechanics” serves several aims at once: it provides a new vision of what the world of quantum mechanics is like, and it offers a program to derive the theory’s formalism from a set of simple postulates pertaining to information processing. I propose here to concentrate entirely on the former, to explore the world of quantum mechanics as Rovelli depicts it. It is a fascinating world in part because of Rovelli’s reliance on the information-theory appro…Read more
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18Representation: The problem for structuralismPhilosophy of Science 73 (5): 536-547. 2006.What does it mean to embed the phenomena in an abstract structure? Or to represent them by doing so? The semantic view of theories runs into a severe problem if these notions are construed either naively, in a metaphysical way, or too closely on the pattern of the earlier syntactic view. Constructive empiricism and structural realism will then share those difficulties. The problem will be posed as in Reichenbach's The Theory of Relativity and A Priori Knowledge, and realist reactions will be exa…Read more
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2Representational of conditional probabilitiesJournal of Philosophical Logic 5 (3): 417-430. 1976.
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2Probabilistic Semantics Objectified: II. Implication in Probabilistic Model SetsJournal of Philosophical Logic 10 (4): 495-510. 1981.
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3Presuppositions: Supervaluations and Free LogicIn Karel Lambert (ed.), The logical way of doing things, Yale University Press. pp. 67-92. 1969.
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8Rational 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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8Review of Brian Ellis, Rational Belief Systems (review)Canadian Journal of Philosophy 10 (3): 497--511. 1980.
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6Probabilistic Semantics Objectified: I. Postulates and LogicsJournal of Philosophical Logic 10 (3): 371-394. 1981.
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Quantum Mechanics: An Empiricist ApproachBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (3): 436-439. 1995.
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40Philosophical perspectives on infinity—graham OppyInternational Philosophical Quarterly 48 (2): 257-258. 2008.
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18Putnam's paradox: Metaphysical realism revamped and evadedPhilosophical Perspectives 11 17-42. 1997.Hilary Putnam's argument against metaphysical realism (commonly referred to as the "model theoretic argument") has now enjoyed two decades of discussion.(1) The text is rich and contains variously construable arguments against variously construed philosophical positions. David Lewis isolated one argument and called it "Putnam's Paradox".(2) That argument is clear and concise; so is the paradoxical conclusion it purports to demonstrate; and so is Lewis' paradox-avoiding solution. His solution inv…Read more
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