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1Michael Redhead, Incompleteness, Nonlocality, and Realism: A Prolegomenon to the Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 8 (8): 316-320. 1988.
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14Quantum logic and the unity of scienceIn S. Rahman (ed.), Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 257--287. 2004.
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5EcosystemsIn Sahorta Sarkar & Anya Plutynski (eds.), Companion to the Philosophy of Biology, Blackwell. 2008.This chapter contains section titled: The Scope of Ecology General Description of Ecosystems History of the Term “Ecosystem” Ecosystems as Symbiotic Units Ecosystems as Dissipative Structures Ecosystems and Evolutionary Biology Skeptical Critiques of Ecosystem Theory Ecosystem Integrity and Health Sustainability from an Ecosystems Point of View Acknowledgments References Further Reading.
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39Symbiosis and the Ecological Role of PhilosophyDialogue 38 (4): 699-718. 1999.RésuméCet article défend une approche à la philosophic et à l'éthique environnementale qui a originalement été avancée par Aldo Leopold. Selon cet auteur, l'éthique peut être comprise, d'un point de vue biologique, comme la forme spécifiquement humaine de la symbiose. La question cruciate de notre époque est de savoir si les humains peuvent coexister avec l'environnement global en un état de symbiose. La philosophie et les sciences humaines en général peuvent contribuer grandement à l'atteinte d…Read more
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Realism in a quantum world"In Jeffrey Foss (ed.), Science and the World: Philosophical Approaches, Broadview Press. 2013.
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Realism in a quantum world"In Jeffrey Foss (ed.), Science and the World: Philosophical Approaches, Broadview Press. 2013.
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28As Much as Possible, as Soon As Possible: Getting Negative About EmissionsEthics, Policy and Environment 25 (3): 281-296. 2022.This paper is a report on the viability, both technical and ethical, of negative emissions technologies (NETs) in climate change mitigation. Given present levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, NETs are almost certainly required in order to avoid the most serious consequences of anthropogenic carbonization. Critics argue that we should not rely on the promise of future NETs because that could be taken as an excuse to avoid decarbonization in the near term. The concern is genuine, but if the prima…Read more
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23A Different Kind of Rigor: What Climate Scientists Can Learn from Emergency Room DoctorsEthics, Policy and Environment 21 (2): 194-214. 2018.ABSTRACTJames Hansen and others have argued that climate scientists are often reluctant to speak out about extreme outcomes of anthropogenic carbonization. According to Hansen, such reticence lessens the chance of effective responses to these threats. With the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet as a case study, reasons for scientific reticence are reviewed. The challenges faced by scientists in finding the right balance between reticence and speaking out are both ethical and methodological…Read more
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16A Different Kind of Rigor: What Climate Scientists Can Learn From Emergency Room DoctorsEthics, Policy, and Environment. forthcoming.James Hansen and others have argued that climate scientists are often reluctant to speak out about extreme outcomes of anthropogenic carbonization. According to Hansen, such reticence lessens the chance of effective responses to these threats. With the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet as a case study, reasons for scientific reticence are reviewed. The challenges faced by scientists in finding the right balance between reticence and speaking out are both ethical and methodological. Scient…Read more
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20Would Superluminal Influences Violate the Principle of Relativity?Lato Sensu: Revue de la Société de Philosophie des Sciences 1 (1): 49-62. 2014.It continues to be alleged that superluminal in uences of any sort would be inconsistent with special relativity for the following three reasons: they would imply the existence of a ‘distinguished’ frame; they would allow the detection of absolute motion; and they would violate the relativity of simultaneity. This paper shows that the first two objections rest upon very elementary misunderstandings of Minkowski geometry and on lingering Newtonian intuitions about instantaneity. The third objecti…Read more
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23This is a review of those key thought experiments in physics from the late 19th century onward that seem to have played a particular role in the process of the discovery or advancement of theory. Among others the paper discusses Maxwell's demon, several of Einstein's thought experiments in relativity, Heisenberg's microscope, the Einstein-Schrödinger cat, and the EPR thought experiment.
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4The End of the World (review)Dialogue 38 (3): 650-652. 1999.Suppose you woke up one morning having utterly forgotten what year it was, or, indeed, what century and what millennium it was, but with all your cognitive faculties otherwise intact. In particular, you remember that human population increases monotonically with time, implying that, in later years, there are far more positions you could be occupying in the whole set of all persons who have ever lived or will live. Then, John Leslie tells us, you will apply your knowledge of probability theory in…Read more
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69The quantum revolution: a historical perspectiveGreenwood Press. 2008.The twilight of certainty -- Einstein and light -- The Bohr atom and old quantum theory -- Uncertain synthesis -- Dualities -- Elements of physical reality -- Creation and annihilation -- Quantum mechanics goes to work -- Symmetries and resonances -- "The most profound discovery of science" -- Bits, qubits, and the ultimate computer -- Unfinished. business.
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8PrefaceIn Kent A. Peacock & Andrew D. Irvine (eds.), Mistakes of reason: essays in honour of John Woods, University of Toronto Press. 2005.
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3Eric Katz, Andrew Light and David Rothenberg, eds., Beneath the Surface: Critical Essays in the Philosophy of Deep Ecology Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 23 (2): 110-112. 2003.
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77I explore the application of the “no-go” theorems of quantum mechanics to the problem of the openness of the future. The notion of fatalism can be made precise if we think of it as a claim that the future has a Boolean property structure. However, if this is correct, then it may be the case that by the “no-go” theorems of quantum mechanics the future must be at least partially open in the precise sense that there cannot be a fact of the matter at a given time about some events at later times.
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24Mistakes of reason: essays in honour of John Woods (edited book)University of Toronto Press. 2005.The essays evaluate Woods' work and celebrate the generous contribution that he has made to Canada?s intellectual development over the past forty years.
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7ContentsIn Kent A. Peacock & Andrew D. Irvine (eds.), Mistakes of reason: essays in honour of John Woods, University of Toronto Press. 2005.
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23AcknowledgementsIn Kent A. Peacock & Andrew D. Irvine (eds.), Mistakes of reason: essays in honour of John Woods, University of Toronto Press. 2005.
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49The three faces of ecological fitnessStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 42 (1): 99-105. 2011.This paper argues that fitness is most usefully understood as those properties of organisms that are explanatory of survival in the broadest sense, not merely descriptive of reproductive success. Borrowing from Rosenberg and Bouchard , fitness in this sense is ecological in that it is defined by the interactions between organisms and environments. There are three sorts of ecological fitness: the well-documented ability to compete, the ability to cooperate , and a third sense of fitness that has …Read more
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161Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity (review)Philosophical Review 105 (2): 259-262. 1996.Sherlock Holmes is reputed to have once remarked impatiently to his earnest but plodding colleague Watson, “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” In Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity, Tim Maudlin offers us a thorough and provocative argument based on this methodological principle. Maudlin insists that all explanations of the mysterious non-local correlations of quantum mechanics must by now be reject…Read more
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5FrontmatterIn Kent A. Peacock & Andrew D. Irvine (eds.), Mistakes of reason: essays in honour of John Woods, University of Toronto Press. 2005.
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36Bub and the barriers to quantum ontologyInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 16 (3). 2002.(2002). Bub and the barriers to quantum ontology. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 285-289. doi: 10.1080/0269859022000013346
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50Philosophy of ecology (edited book)North-Holland. 2011.The most pressing problems facing humanity today - over-population, energy shortages, climate change, soil erosion, species extinctions, the risk of epidemic disease, the threat of warfare that could destroy all the hard-won gains of civilization, and even the recent fibrillations of the stock market - are all ecological or have a large ecological component. in this volume philosophers turn their attention to understanding the science of ecology and its huge implications for the human project. T…Read more
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84It seems to me that it is among the most sure-footed of quantum physicists, those who have it in their bones, that one finds the greatest impatience with the idea that the ‘foundations of quantum mechanics’ might need some attention. Knowing what is right by instinct, they can become a little impatient with nitpicking distinctions between theorems and assumptions. —John Stewart Bell [4, p. 33]
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39A Model of the Universe (review)Review of Metaphysics 49 (2): 419-420. 1995.Not too many metaphysicians in these hypercritical times would dream of offering a theory of everything, but Storrs McCall, who modestly compares his new book to The Origin of Species, claims that his theory may accomplish nothing less than to "illuminate, perhaps even resolve" problems such as "the direction and flow of time; what causation consists of; the nature of scientific laws; the interpretation of quantum mechanics; objective probability; counterfactuals and related conditionals; the id…Read more
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Philosophy of Biology |
Philosophy of Physical Science |