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9Interpreting State Reduction from the Practices-UpPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1990 263-275. 1990.This paper examines some physical sources of the concept of objective state reduction in quantum mechanics. Using case studies from nuclear physics and quantum chemistry, the question of whether one can induce a collapse theory from the practices of scientists working on specific problems is considered. A specific proposal is explored, with emphasis on such features as coherence, testability, unifying power and fertility. It is shown that, contrary to recent suggestions by David Albert, collapse…Read more
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22Diachronic Realism about Successful TheoriesProceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 43 51-66. 2008.The success of a scientific theory T is not an all-or-nothing matter; nor is a theory something one can usually accept or reject in toto (i.e. one may take T as being "approximately true", or take as true just certain "parts" of it, without necessarily affirming every posit and claim specific to T as being either completely right or completely wrong). This, however, raises questions about precisely which parts of T deserve to be taken as approximately true. on the basis of its success. A line of…Read more
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20Pluralism, Scientific Values, and the Value of ScienceIn Evandro Agazzi & Fabio Minazzi (eds.), Science and ethics: the axiological contexts of science, P.i.e. Peter Lang. pp. 101--114. 2008.
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10Evolutionary Ideas and Contemporary NaturalismIn Evandro Agazzi & Alberto Cordero (eds.), Philosophy and the Origin and Evolution of the Universe, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 399--439. 1991.
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17What Conditions is Physics Expected to Fulfil in Order to Provide Bases for Weltanschauungen?Philosophie Et Culture: Actes du XVIIe Congrès Mondial de Philosophie 5 204-208. 1988.
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34Contemporary Nativism, Scientific Texture, and the Moral Limits of Free InquiryPhilosophy of Science 72 (5): 1220-1231. 2005.Some thinkers distrust Darwinist explorations of complex human behaviors, particularly investigations into possible differences in valued skills between genders, races or classes. Such projects, it is claimed, tend to have adverse effects on people who are already disadvantaged. A recent argument by Philip Kitcher both clarifies and generalizes this charge to cover a whole genre of scientific projects. In this paper I try to spell out and analyze Kitcher's argument. The argument fails, I suggest…Read more
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128Summary: Responding to Laudan’s skeptical reading of history an influential group of realists claim that the seriously wrong claims past successful theories licensed were not really implicated in the predictions that once singled them out as successful. For example, in the case of Fresnel’s theory of light, it is said that although he appealed to the ether he didn’t actually need to in order to derive his famous experimental predictions—in them, we are assured, the ether concept was “idle,” “ine…Read more
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75Physics and the Underdetermination ThesisThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 10 97-113. 2001.Although exceptionally successful in the laboratory, the standard version of quantum theory is marred as a realist-objectivist proposition because of its internal conceptual difficulties and its tension with important parts of physics—most conspicuously, relativity theory. So, to meet these challenges, in recent years at least three distinct major objectivist programs have been advanced to further quantum theory into a proper general account of material systems. Unfortunately, the resulting prop…Read more
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116Diachronic Realism about Successful TheoriesProceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 43 51-66. 2008.The success of a scientific theory T is not an all-or-nothing matter; nor is a theory something one can usually accept or reject in toto (i.e. one may take T as being "approximately true", or take as true just certain "parts" of it, without necessarily affirming every posit and claim specific to T as being either completely right or completely wrong). This, however, raises questions about precisely which parts of T deserve to be taken as approximately true. on the basis of its success. A line of…Read more
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173Scientific Realism and the Divide et Impera Strategy: The Ether Saga RevisitedPhilosophy of Science 78 (5): 1120-1130. 2011.Using the optical ether as a case study, this article advances four lines of consideration to show why synchronic versions of the divide et impera strategy of scientific realism are unlikely to work. The considerations draw from the nineteenth-century theories of light, the rise of surprising implication as an epistemic value from the time of Fresnel on, assessments of the ether in end-of-century reports around 1900, and the roots of ether theorizing in now superseded metaphysical assumptions. T…Read more
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18Philosophy and the Origin and Evolution of the Universe (edited book)Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1991.Modern cosmology, though a confluence of relativity theory and elementary particle physics, and with the help of very sophisticated mathematical models, tries to encompass the Universe as a whole, and to propose theories regarding its origin and evolution. But this cannot work without the evolution of several philosophical issues, concerning the epistemological status of this enterprise, its implicit or explicit extra-scientific presuppositions, as well as the real sense and interpretation of th…Read more
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