•  338
    Otávio Bueno* * and Steven French.** ** Applying Mathematics: Immersion, Inference, Interpretation. Oxford University Press, 2018. ISBN: 978-0-19-881504-4 978-0-19-185286-2. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198815044. 001.0001. Pp. xvii + 257
  •  220
    Generalizing evolutionary altruism
    Philosophy of Science 60 (4): 568-586. 1993.
    Although accounts of evolutionary altruism which leave the question of whether altruism can evolve in nature open to empirical confirmation/refutation have been worked out for special (two-trait) cases, no real effort has been made to work out such accounts for general (N-trait) cases. It is tempting to take this lack of attention as evidence for an inextricably conventional element, which precludes such accounts from being of practical scientific value. I argue that such accounts do generalize …Read more
  •  149
    Philosophers and psychologists have experimentally explored various aspects of people’s understandings of subjective experience based on their responses to questions about whether robots “see red” or “feel frustrated,” but the intelligibility of such questions may well presuppose that people understand robots as experiencers in the first place. Departing from the standard approach, I develop an experimental framework that distinguishes 20 between “phenomenal consciousness” as it is applied to a …Read more
  •  146
    The Quine/Putnam indispensability approach to the confirmation of mathematical theories in recent times has been the subject of significant criticism. In this paper I explore an alternative to the Quine/Putnam indispensability approach. I begin with a van Fraassen-like distinction between accepting the adequacy of a mathematical theory and believing in the truth of a mathematical theory. Finally, I consider the problem of moving from the adequacy of a mathematical theory to its truth. I argue th…Read more
  •  139
    Consciousness as Integrated Information: a Provisional Philosophical Critique
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 20 (1-2): 180-206. 2013.
    Giulio Tononi (2008) has offered his integrated information theory of consciousness (IITC) as a “provisional manifesto.” I critically examine how the approach fares. I point out some (relatively) internal concerns with the theory and then more broadly philosophical ones; finally I assess the prospects for IITC as a fundamental theory of consciousness. I argue that the IITC’s scientific promise does carry over to a significant extent to broader philosophical theorizing about qualia and conscio…Read more
  •  123
    Causation, Probability, and the Continuity Bind
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (3): 881-909. 2017.
    Analyses of singular causation often make use of the idea that a cause increases the probability of its effect. Of particular salience in such accounts are the values of the probability function of the effect, conditional on the presence and absence of the putative cause, analysed around the times of the events in question: causes are characterized by the effect’s probability function being greater when conditionalized upon them. Put this way, it becomes clearer that the ‘behaviour’ of probabili…Read more
  •  122
    The Nagel inspired “something-it-is-like” conception of conscious experience remains a dominant approach in philosophy. In this paper I criticize a prevalent philosophical construal of SIL consciousness, one that understands SIL as a property of mental states rather than entities as a whole. I argue against thinking of SIL as a property of states, showing how such a view is in fact prevalent, under-warranted, and philosophically pernicious in that it often leads to an implausible reduction of co…Read more
  •  108
    The Nagel inspired “something-it-is-like” conception of conscious experience remains a dominant approach in philosophy. In this paper I criticize a prevalent philosophical construal of SIL consciousness, one that understands SIL as a property of mental states rather than entities as a whole. I argue against thinking of SIL as a property of states, showing how such a view is in fact prevalent, under-warranted, and philosophically pernicious in that it often leads to an implausible reduction of co…Read more
  •  105
    Naturalism, evolution, and self-defeat
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 44 (1): 41-51. 1998.
    In the intriguing final chapter of his book Warrant and Proper Function, Alvin Plantinga argues that naturalism, conjoined with a neo-Darwinian picture, is self-defeating. This argument has drawn its fair share of critical response. Plantinga in turn has recently responded in his as yet unpublished manuscript ‘Naturalism Defeated’. This first volley of debate has helped bring into focus several points of contention between Plantinga and his critics, but to date, the logical structure of the ar…Read more
  •  86
    The Indispensability of Mathematics (review)
    Philosophia Mathematica 11 (2): 208-223. 2003.
    The subject with which Mark Colyvan's book deals is timely indeed. While discussions of mathematical ontology have been a mainstay in philosophy of mathematics for the last century (at least), for the last thirty years or so this discussion has begun with (and often not left) the Quine/Putnam indispensability argument. Though the argument is widely cited, to my knowledge this is the first book-length project exclusively dedicated to articulating and defending the Quine/Putnam indispensability ar…Read more
  •  68
    Proof, Reliability, and Mathematical Knowledge
    Theoria 69 (3): 211-232. 2003.
    With respect to the confirmation of mathematical propositions, proof possesses an epistemological authority unmatched by other means of confirmation. This paper is an investigation into why this is the case. I make use of an analysis drawn from an early reliability perspective on knowledge to help make sense of mathematical proofs singular epistemological status.
  •  65
    Imprecise Probability and Chance
    Erkenntnis 81 (3): 561-586. 2016.
    Understanding probabilities as something other than point values has often been motivated by the need to find more realistic models for degree of belief, and in particular the idea that degree of belief should have an objective basis in “statistical knowledge of the world.” I offer here another motivation growing out of efforts to understand how chance evolves as a function of time. If the world is “chancy” in that there are non-trivial, objective, physical probabilities at the macro-level, then…Read more
  •  64
    Troubles with indispensability: Applying pure mathematics in physical theory
    Philosophia Mathematica 5 (3): 210-227. 1997.
    Much of the current thought concerning mathematical ontology in volves in some way the Quine/Putnam indispensability argument. The indispensability approach needs to be more thoroughly specified, however, before substantive progress can be made in assessing it. To this end I examine in some detail the ways in which pure mathematics is applied to physical theory; such considerations give rise to three specific issues with which the indispensability approach must come to grips.
  •  59
    Confirmational holism and its mathematical (w)holes
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 39 (1): 102-111. 2008.
    I critically examine confirmational holism as it pertains to the indispensability arguments for mathematical Platonism. I employ a distinction between pure and applied mathematics that grows out of the often overlooked symbiotic relationship between mathematics and science. I argue that this distinction undercuts the notion that mathematical theories fall under the holistic scope of the confirmation of our scientific theories.Keywords: Confirmational holism; Indispensability argument; Mathematic…Read more
  •  51
    Applying pure mathematics
    Philosophy of Science 66 (3): 13. 1999.
    Much of the current thought concerning mathematical ontology and epistemology follows Quine and Putnam in looking to the indispensable application of mathematics in science. A standard assumption of the indispensability approach is some version of confirmational holism, i.e., that only "sufficiently large" sets of beliefs "face the tribunal of experience." In this paper I develop and defend a distinction between a pure mathematical theory and a mathematized scientific theory in which it is appli…Read more
  •  42
    Troubles with indispensability: Applying Pure Mathematics in Physical Theory
    Philosophia Mathematica 5 (3): 210-227. 1997.
    Much of the current thought concerning mathematical ontology in volves in some way the Quine/Putnam indispensability argument. The indispensability approach needs to be more thoroughly specified, however, before substantive progress can be made in assessing it. To this end I examine in some detail the ways in which pure mathematics is applied to physical theory; such considerations give rise to three specific issues with which the indispensability approach must come to grips.
  •  39
    Against the philosophical project of “biologizing” race
    Metaphilosophy 52 (5): 593-615. 2021.
    This paper critiques philosophical efforts to biologize race as racial projects (Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States). The paper argues that the deeply social phenomenon of race defies the analytic schema employed by biologizing philosophers. The very (social) act of theorizing race is already in an involuted relationship with its target concept: analyzing race must be seen as a racial project, in that it simultaneously helps to manage how race is represented in society and hel…Read more
  •  34
    Psychological Explanation and Behavior Broadly Conceived
    Behavior and Philosophy 25 (2): 137-159. 1997.
    I argue that a broad conception of behavior makes considerable headway toward an account of psychological explanation that preserves the intuitive correctness of belief/desire psychological explanations and whose explanatory utility is not undercut by neurophysiological explanations. The rough idea behind a broad conception of behavior is that the basic units of behavior, which constitute the primary explananda of psychology, are themselves essentially goal-directed. As such, behavior supervenes…Read more
  •  17
    Turn Taking, Team Synchronization, and Non-stationarity in Physiological Time Series
    with Stephen J. Guastello, David E. C. Marra, Julian Castro, and Michael Equi
    Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences 21 319-334. 2017.
    This study investigated the stationarity of electrodermal time series collected in situations where turn taking in human interactions are involved. In this context, the stationarity of the time series is the extent to which a simple model can be used to fit the entire time series. The experiment involved seven participants in an emergency response simulation against one opponent. They generated 48 time series across six simulations, which were split and re-spliced to separate the team’s turns an…Read more
  •  15
    Cumulative versus Noncumulative Ramified Types
    Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 38 (3): 385-397. 1997.
    In this paper I examine the nature of Russell's ramified type theory resolution of paradoxes. In particular, I consider the effect of construing the types in Church's cumulative sense, that is, the range of a variable of a given type includes the range of every variable of directly lower type. Contrary to what seems to be generally assumed, I show that the decision to make the levels cumulative and allow this to be reflected in the semantics is not neutral with respect to the solution of the par…Read more
  •  15
    Cognitive Workload and Fatigue in a Vigilance Dual Task: Miss Errors, False Alarms, and the Effect of Wearing Biometric Sensors While Working
    with Stephen J. Guastello, David E. C. Marra, Claire Perna, Julian Castro, and Maribeth Gomez
    Behavioral and physiological synchronization have important implications for work teams with regard to workload management, coordinated behavior and overall functioning. This study extended previous work on the nonlinear statistical structure of GSR series in dyads to larger teams and included subjective ratings of workload and contributions to problem solving. Eleven teams of 3 or 4 people played a series of six emergency response games against a single opponent. Seven of the groups worked unde…Read more
  •  10
    To further the understanding of how to build or reduce synchrony in a work team, we examined two principles for defining the optimal condition to produce or limit synchrony: the empath-driver ratio, and the balance between autocorrelated autonomic arousal and the degree of influence that transfers from each group member to other group members. In study 1, we employed a series of computational simulations designed to manipulate the four variables. The results indicated that there is a four-way ba…Read more
  •  7
    Synchronization is a special case of self-organization in which one can observe close mimicry in behavior of the system components. Synchrony in body movements, autonomic arousal, and EEG activity among human individuals has attracted considerable attention for their possible roles in social interaction. This article is specifically concerned with autonomic synchrony and finding the best model for the dyadic relationships, with regard to both theoretical and empirical accuracy, that could be ext…Read more
  •  7
    Synchronization of autonomic arousal levels within dyads and larger teams has been associated with several types of social-behavioral outcome. One previous study reported greater physiological influence of leaders on followers than of followers on leaders; influence was measured pairwise within triadic problem solving groups. The present study explored synchronized autonomic arousal with leadership outcomes in two experiments with group sizes of three to eight members. Drivers, who had the great…Read more
  •  6
    Behavioral and physiological synchronization have important implications for work teams with regard to workload management, coordinated behavior and overall functioning. This study extended previous work on the nonlinear statistical structure of GSR series in dyads to larger teams and included subjective ratings of workload and contributions to problem solving. Eleven teams of 3 or 4 people played a series of six emergency response (ER) games against a single opponent. Seven of the groups worked…Read more
  •  5
    Investment funds typically vary with regard to the emphasis that the managers place on acceptable risk and expected returns on investment. This chapter highlight a nonlinear analytic strategy, orbital decomposition for identifying and extracting patterns of categorical events from time series data. The contributing constructs from symbolic dynamics, chaos, and entropy are described in conjunction with the central ORBDE algorithm. A study in task switching, which can alleviate or induce cognitive…Read more
  •  4
    Investment funds typically vary with regard to the emphasis that the managers place on acceptable risk and expected returns on investment. This chapter highlight a nonlinear analytic strategy, orbital decomposition for identifying and extracting patterns of categorical events from time series data. The contributing constructs from symbolic dynamics, chaos, and entropy are described in conjunction with the central ORBDE algorithm. A study in task switching, which can alleviate or induce cognitive…Read more
  •  1
    The Confirmation of Mathematics and its Relationship to Science
    Dissertation, The University of Wisconsin - Madison. 1994.
    How are mathematical theories and statements confirmed? This is the central question of my dissertation. The received view, the Quine/Putnam indispensability account, views science as holding the key to the confirmation of mathematics. The influence of the Quine/Putnam indispensability approach cannot be overstated; however, new and important doubts are being raised concerning its efficacy. The first part of my dissertation is directed toward the Quine/Putnam indispensability account. I examine …Read more