•  249
    Versions of Determinism
    Mεtascience: Scientific General Discourse 2 250-260. 2022.
    Karl Popper’s “Indeterminism in Quantum Physics and in Classical Physics” suffers unjust neglect. He judged determinism false: the future is open. In principle, replacing Laplace's variant of predetermination with predictable predetermination renders “scientific” determinism scientific and so refutable. Popper claimed that he had refuted it. Now a metaphysical system may have an extension—in the mathematical sense—that may render it explanatory and testable. If it exists, then it is not unique b…Read more
  •  170
    Koyré on the history of cosmology (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 9 (35): 234-245. 1958.
  •  152
    Corroboration versus induction
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 9 (33): 311. 1958.
  •  150
    Comparability and incommensurability
    Social Epistemology 17 (2 & 3). 2003.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  150
    Variantes du déterminisme
    Mεtascience: Discours Général Scientifique 2 293-304. 2022.
    L’article de Karl Popper « Indeterminism in Quantum Physics and in Classical Physics » est tombé injustement dans l’oubli. Popper jugeait le déterminisme faux : l’avenir est ouvert. En principe, remplacer la variante de Laplace de la pré-détermination par une prédétermination prévisible permet de rendre scienti-fique, donc réfutable, le déterminisme « scientifique ». Popper a affirmé qu’il l’avait réfuté. Maintenant, un système métaphysique peut avoir une extension – au sens mathématique – qui l…Read more
  •  149
    New books (review)
    with E. R. Dodds, R. M. Martin, Robert Kirkham, G. H. Bird, Jenny Teichmann, R. N. Smart, and N. J. Brown
    Mind 68 (270): 269-286. 1959.
  •  125
    ANTHROPOMORPHISM is an inveterate tendency to project human qualities into natural phenomena—consciously or not. The standard and most important variant of anthropomorphism is animism which sees a soul in everything in nature. Before entering into the role of anthropomorphism in the history of science, let us consider a few important and usually neglected logical aspects of the idea.
  •  124
    Blame not the laws of nature
    Foundations of Science 1 (1): 131-154. 1995.
    1. Lies, Error and Confusion 2. Lies 3. The Demarcation of Science: Historical 4. The Demarcation of Science: Recent 5. Observed Regularities and Laws of Nature
  •  119
    Current Philosophy of Science
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 41 (2): 278-294. 2011.
    This Companion to the philosophy of science reflects fairly well the gloomy state of affairs in this subfield at its best—concerns, problems, prejudices, and all. The field is still stuck with the problem of justification of science, refusing to admit that there is neither need nor possibility to justify science and forbid dissent from it
  •  107
  •  104
    Causality and Medicine
    Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 1 (4): 301-317. 1976.
    The philosophers of science who viewed causality as a metaphysical headache were right. Yet when they concluded that it is of no scientific import and of less practical import, they were clearly in error. I say clearly because they thereby recommended that we replace cause by mere empirical correlation, which obviously will not do. Here is an obvious example which proves them in error without even touching upon the question of what science is.
  •  92
    The word "brain-washing", translated from Chinese communist jargon, is a very strong metaphor, first popularized by Robert Jay Lifto n. It vividly describes one person interfering with the personality make-up of another, removing the other's ideology and replacing it, and similarly tampering with the other's tastes, pool of information to rely upon and whatever else goes into the make-up of the other's personality. Clearly, in some sense or another everyone interferes with the personality of peo…Read more
  •  86
    Criteria for plausible arguments
    Mind 83 (331): 406-416. 1974.
  •  85
    Better a Bang than a Whimper
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 43 (3): 390-396. 2013.
  •  83
    We Socratic Philosophers Know that We Know Nothing
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 42 (1): 146-151. 2012.
    This volume is as near an authoritative version of analytic philosophy as can be found in the market these days
  •  82
    Review: Koyré on the History of Cosmology (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 9 (35). 1958.
  •  73
    The variety of languages in the world is considered a curse by some, who view the phenomenon as a Tower of Babel. Others consider it the most characteristic quality of human language as opposed to animal languages, which are supposedly species specific. The variety is viewed as a symptom of human caprice, arbitrariness, or dependence on mere historical accident by some; and as a symptom of human freedom and of the creative aspect of language by others. And, of course, the human limitation caused…Read more
  •  68
    Between micro and macro
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 14 (53): 26-31. 1963.
  •  60
    The idea of verisimilitude is implicit in the writings of Albert Einstein ever since 1905, when he declared the distribution of field energy according to Maxwell's theory an approximation to that according to quantum-radiation theory, and Newtonian kinetic energy an approximation to his relativistic mass-energy. All his life Einstein presented new ideas as yielding older established ones as special cases and first approximations. The news has reached the philosophical community via the writings …Read more
  •  58
    Mario Bunge: A Centenary Festschrift (edited book)
    with Mario Augusto Bunge, Michael R. Matthews, Guillermo M. Denegri, Eduardo L. Ortiz, Heinz W. Droste, Alberto Cordero, Pierre Deleporte, María Manzano, Manuel Crescencio Moreno, Dominique Raynaud, Íñigo Ongay de Felipe, Nicholas Rescher, Richard T. W. Arthur, Rögnvaldur D. Ingthorsson, Evandro Agazzi, Ingvar Johansson, Nimrod Bar-Am, Alberto Cupani, Gustavo E. Romero, Andrés Rivadulla, Art Hobson, Olival Freire Junior, Peter Slezak, Ignacio Morgado-Bernal, Marta Crivos, Leonardo Ivarola, Andreas Pickel, Russell Blackford, Michael Kary, A. Z. Obiedat, Carolina I. García Curilaf, Rafael González del Solar, Luis Marone, Javier Lopez de Casenave, Francisco Yannarella, Mauro A. E. Chaparro, José Geiser Villavicencio- Pulido, Martín Orensanz, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Reinhard Kahle, Ibrahim A. Halloun, José María Gil, Omar Ahmad, Byron Kaldis, Marc Silberstein, Carolina I. García Curilaf, Rafael González del Solar, Javier Lopez de Casenave, Íñigo Ongay de Felipe, and Villavicencio-Pulid
    Springer Verlag. 2019.
    This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology…Read more
  •  53
    On the definition of life
    with Abel Schejter
    Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 25 (1). 1994.
    Schrödinger's definition of life needs a slight modification to absorb the criticism of it. It is the comparison of the entropy level of a system before and after a process which makes one view it as living: we consider the stability of the deviation from the probable a sign of life. This explains why we do not hesitate to consider as remnants of living systems skeletons and fossils anywhere and physical culture on any archeological site
  •  53
    Between science and technology
    Philosophy of Science 47 (1): 82-99. 1980.
    Basic research or fundamental research is distinct from both pure and applied research, in that it is pure research with expected useful results. The existence of basic or fundamental research is problematic, at least for both inductivists and instrumentalists, but also for Popper. Assuming scientific research to be the search for explanatory conjectures and for refutations, and assuming technology to be the search of conjectures and some corroborations, we can easily place basic or fundamental …Read more
  •  46
    Abstract and Introduction. This essay is an attempt to dispense with the negative aspects of Romanticism and examine whatever positive it has to offer--in the light of ideas scattered through diverse writings of Ernest Gellner
  •  44
    Back to the drawing board
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 35 (4): 509-518. 2005.
    Within ontology new theories are extremely rare. Hacking bravely claims to have one: "historical ontology" or "dynamic nominalism." Regrettably, he uses "nominalism" idiosyncratically, without explaining it or its qualifier. He does say what historical ontology is: it is "the presentation of the history of ontology in context." This idea is laudable, as it invites presenting idealism as once attractive but no longer so (due to changes in perception theory, for example). But this idea is a propos…Read more
  •  44
    A Hegelian view of complementarity (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 9 (33): 57-63. 1958.
  •  40
    A Note on Smith's Term "Naturalism"
    Hume Studies 12 (1): 92-96. 1986.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:92 A NOTE ON SMITH'S TERM "NATURALISM" The reader of contemporary Hume literature may feel exasperated when reading recent authors. A conspicuous example is A.J. Ayer (Hume, 1982; see index, Art, Natural beliefs), who declares they endorse Kemp Smith's view of Hume's "naturalism" without sufficiently clarifying what they — or Smith — might exactly mean by this term. Charles W. Hendel, in the 1963 edition of his 1924 Studies in the Ph…Read more