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560No Need to Speak the same Language? Review of Ramberg, Donald Davidson's Philosophy of LanguageDialectica, Vol. 50, No.1, 1996, Pp. 63-71 50 (1): 63-72. 1996.The book is an “introductory” reconstruction of Davidson on interpretation —a claim to be taken with a grain of salt. Writing introductory books has become an idol of the tribe. This is a concise book and reflects much study. It has many virtues along with some flaws. Ramberg assembles themes and puzzles from Davidson into a more or less coherent viewpoint. A special virtue is the innovative treatment of incommensurability and of the relation of Davidson’s work to hermeneutic themes. The weaknes…Read more
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419Heidegger's Comportment Toward East-West DialoguePhilosophy East and West 56 (4): 519-566. 2006.The primary purpose here is to ascertain what Heidegger's comportment toward East-West dialogue is most plausibly like in the light of his philosophical concerns and orientations. Considering that one should not uncritically take at face value occasional remarks by Heidegger that seem to suggest that he is preparing an East-West dialogue, we will proceed from Heidegger's own path of thinking and bring to light fundamental presuppositions in his thought and the response he may accordingly give to…Read more
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288Chemistry and physics: no need for metaphysical glue (review)Foundations of Chemistry 12 (2): 123-136. 2010.Using the notorious bridge law “water is H 2 O” and the relation between molecular structure and quantum mechanics as examples, I argue that it doesn’t make sense to aim for specific definition(s) of intertheoretical or interdiscourse relation(s) between chemistry and physics (reduction, supervenience, what have you). Proposed definitions of interdiscourse and part-whole relations are interesting only if they provide insight in the variegated interconnected patchwork of theories and beliefs. The…Read more
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282The Plasticity of Categories: The Case of ColourBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (1): 103-135. 1993.Probably colour is the best worked-out example of allegedly neurophysiologically innate response categories determining percepts and percepts determining concepts, and hence biology fixing the basic categories implicit in the use of language. In this paper I argue against this view and I take C. L. Hardin's Color for Philosophers [1988] as my main target. I start by undermining the view that four unique hues stand apart from all other colour shades (Section 2) and the confidence that the solar s…Read more
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262The ignis fatuus of semantic universalia: The case of colourBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (2): 770-783. 1994.
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137On the inventors of XYZFoundations of Chemistry 7 (1): 57-84. 2004.In this paper I try to make as much sense aspossible of, first, the extensive philosophicalliterature concerned with the status of `Wateris H2O' and, second, the implications ofPutnam's invention of Twin Earth, anotherpossible world stipulated to be just like Earth, except that water is XYZ, notH2O
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107Are there nontrivial constraints on colour categorization?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20 (2): 167-179. 1997.In this target article the following hypotheses are discussed: (1) Colour is autonomous: a perceptuolinguistic and behavioural universal. (2) It is completely described by three independent attributes: hue, brightness, and saturation: (3) Phenomenologically and psychophysically there are four unique hues: red, green, blue, and yellow; (4) The unique hues are underpinned by two opponent psychophysical and/or neuronal channels: red/green, blue/yellow. The relevant literature is reviewed. We conclu…Read more
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102Interdiscourse or supervenience relations: The primacy of the manifest imageSynthese 106 (2). 1996.Amidst the progress being made in the various (sub-)disciplines of the behavioural and brain sciences a somewhat neglected subject is the problem of how everything fits into one world and, derivatively, how the relation between different levels of discourse should be understood and to what extent different levels, domains, approaches, or disciplines are autonomous or dependent. In this paper I critically review the most recent proposals to specify the nature of interdiscourse relations, focusing…Read more
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98Supervenience and anomalous monismDialectica 53 (1): 3-24. 1999.SummaryIn this paper I argue that the intuitions which made Davidson and Hare use the word “supervenience,” were not the same as those which underlie current supervenience discussions. There are crucial differences between, on the one hand, the concerns of Davidson and Hare, as I interpret them, and “received” theories of supervenience on the other. I suggest the use of the term by Davidson and Hare lends support to turning the concept upside down by giving priority to the Manifest Image rather …Read more
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97Can the World Help Us in Fixing the Reference of Natural Kind Terms?Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 29 (1). 1998.According to Putnam the reference of natural kind terms is fixed by the world, at least partly; whether two things belong to the same kind depends on whether they obey the same objective laws. We show that Putnam's criterion of substance identity only "works" if we read "objective laws" as "OBJECTIVE LAWS". Moreover, at least some of the laws of some of the special sciences have to be included. But what we consider to be good special sciences and what not depends upon our values. Hence, "objecti…Read more
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93On the Conditions of Possibility for Comparative and Intercultural PhilosophyDao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 12 (3): 297-312. 2013.In this essay, we present a theory of intercultural philosophical dialogue and comparative philosophy, drawing on both hermeneutics and analytic philosophy. We advocate the approach of “de-essentialization” across the board. It is true that similarities and differences are always to be observed across languages and traditions, but there exist no immutable cores or essences. “De-essentialization” applies to all “levels” of concepts: everyday notions such as green and qing 青, philosophical concept…Read more
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87On the neglect of the philosophy of chemistryFoundations of Chemistry 1 (2): 111-174. 1999.In this paper I present a historiography of the recent emergence of philosophy of chemistry. Special attention is given to the interest in this domain in Eastern Europe before the collapse of the USSR. It is shown that the initial neglect of the philosophy of chemistry is due to the unanimous view in philosophy and philosophy of science that only physics is a proper science (to put in Kant's words). More recently, due to the common though incorrect assumption that chemistry can in principle be r…Read more
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86Is Our Universe a Mere Fluke? The Cosmological Argument and Spinning the UniversesPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988 75-82. 1988.Recent discussions about the anthropic principle and the argument from design can perhaps be summarized as follows : The world is very unusual, so it must have been made by an intelligent creator. The world is very unusual, but unusual things do occur by chance. Both and , in their ordinary interpretations, have been labelled probabilistic fallacies. In my paper I will discuss in particular the following two aspects: The contemporary relevance of Cicero's discussions on chance. The fact that any…Read more
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84Heidegger’s thinking on the “Same” of science and technologyContinental Philosophy Review 47 (1): 19-43. 2014.In this article, we trace and elucidate Heidegger’s radical re-thinking on the relation between science and technology from about 1940 until 1976. A range of passages from the Gesamtausgabe seem to articulate a reversal of the primacy of science and technology in claiming that “Science is applied technology.” After delving into Heidegger’s reflection on the being of science and technology and their “coordination,” we show that such a claim is essentially grounded in Heidegger’s idea that “Scienc…Read more
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77Extension of Family Resemblance Concepts as a Necessary Condition of Interpretation across TraditionsDao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 14 (4): 475-497. 2015.In this paper we extend Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance to translation, interpretation, and comparison across traditions. There is no need for universals. This holds for everyday concepts such as green and qing 青, philosophical concepts such as emotion and qing 情, as well as philosophical categories such as form of life and dao 道. These notions as well as all other concepts from whatever tradition are family resemblance concepts. We introduce the notion of quasi-universal, which conn…Read more
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75Meaning, prototypes and the future of cognitive scienceMinds and Machines 1 (3): 233-57. 1991.In this paper I evaluate the soundness of the prototype paradigm, in particular its basic assumption that there are pan-human psychological essences or core meanings that refer to basic-level natural kinds, explaining why, on the whole, human communication and learning are successful. Instead I argue that there are no particular pan-human basic elements for thought, meaning and cognition, neither prototypes, nor otherwise. To illuminate my view I draw on examples from anthropology. More generall…Read more
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66Revisiting Wittgenstein on Family Resemblance and ColourPhilosophical Investigations 39 (2): 254-280. 2016.We argue that all general concepts are family resemblance concepts. These include concepts introduced by ostension, such as colour. Concepts of colour and of each of the specific colours are family resemblance concepts because similarities concerning an open-ended range of colour or of appearance features crop up and disappear. After discussing the notion of “same colour” and Wittgenstein's use of the phrase “our colours”, we suggest family resemblance concepts in one tradition can often be exte…Read more
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53Pragmatic identity of meaning and metaphorInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 2 (2). 1988.No abstract
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50Meaning, prototypes and the future of cognitive scienceMinds and Machines 1 (3): 233-257. 1991.In this paper I evaluate the soundness of the prototype paradigm, in particular its basic assumption that there are pan-human psychological essences or core meanings that refer to basic-level natural kinds, explaining why, on the whole, human communication and learning are successful. Instead I argue that there are no particular pan-human basic elements for thought, meaning and cognition, neither prototypes, nor otherwise. To illuminate my view I draw on examples from anthropology. More generall…Read more
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47Consciousness is not a natural kindBehavioral and Brain Sciences 18 (2): 269-270. 1995.Blocks distinction between “phenomenal feel” consciousness and “thought/cognition” consciousness is a cultural construction. Consciousness (and its “subspecies”) is not a natural kind. Some crosscultural data are presented to support this.
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43Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of ChemistryHyle: International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry 20 (1): 11-57. 2014.In this paper I assess the relation between philosophy of chemistry and philosophy of science, focusing on those themes in the philosophy of chemistry that may bring about major revisions or extensions of current philosophy of science. Three themes can claim to make a unique contribution to philosophy of science: first, the variety of materials in the world; second, extending the world by making new stuff; and, third, specific features of the relations between chemistry and physics.
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42Orange laser beams are not illusory: The need for a plurality of “real” color ontologiesBehavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (1): 27-28. 2003.Reflectance physicalism only provides a partial picture of the ontology of color. Byrne & Hilbert’ account is unsatisfactory because the replacement of reflectance functions by productance functions is ad hoc, unclear, and only leads to new problems. Furthermore, the effects of color contrast and differences in illumination are not really taken seriously: Too many “real” colors are tacitly dismissed as illusory, and this for arbitrary reasons. We claim that there cannot be an all-embracing ontol…Read more
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42The limited belief in chanceStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 22 (3): 499-513. 1991.In a rarely quoted paper, published in 1958 in the American Journal of Physics, T. Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa introduced the idea that the concept of chance as employed in physics is subject to what she called a ‘Limited Belief in Chance’. In this paper I elaborate the latter concept and the distinction between absolute chance and relative randomness, where the latter, but not the former, is governed by the theory of probability. I argue that in the twentieth century virtually nobody believes serious…Read more
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38Interdiscourse or supervenience relations: The primacy of the manifest imageSynthese 106 (2): 253-97. 1996.Amidst the progress being made in the various (sub-)disciplines of the behavioural and brain sciences a somewhat neglected subject is the problem of how everything fits into one world and, derivatively, how the relation between different levels of discourse should be understood and to what extent different levels, domains, approaches, or disciplines are autonomous or dependent. In this paper I critically review the most recent proposals to specify the nature of interdiscourse relations, focusing…Read more