•  11
    Preface
    Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 49 (2): 159-160. 2018.
    Preface to Journal of General Philosophy of Science, issue 2: Meta2physics. New Perspectives on Analytic and Naturalised Metaphysics of Science
  •  68
    Metaphysics of Science
    Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2019.
    Metaphysics of Science is the philosophical study of key concepts that figure prominently in science and that, prima facie, stand in need of clarification. It is also concerned with the phenomena that correspond to these concepts. Exemplary topics within Metaphysics of Science include laws of nature, causation, dispositions, natural kinds, possibility and necessity, explanation, reduction, emergence, grounding, and space and time. Metaphysics of Science is a subfield of both metaphysics and the…Read more
  •  30
    Naturgesetze
    De Gruyter. 2020.
    The notion of a law of nature is a central component of our scientific and philosophical conception of reality. The lawful character of our world makes natural phenomena predictable, understandable and manipulable in specific ways. This book provides a systematic overview of the most important philosophical conceptions of laws and concludes with a presentation of a novel version of the best systems theory.
  •  1
    It is widely believed that at least two developments in the last third of the 20th century have given dispositionalism—the view that powers, capacities, potencies, etc. are irreducible real properties—new credibility: (i) the many counterexamples launched against reductive analyses of dispositional predicates in terms of counterfactual conditionals and (ii) a new anti-Humean faith in necessary connections in nature which, it is said, owes a lot to Kripke’s arguments surrounding metaphysical nece…Read more
  •  16
    Galileo versus Aristotle on Free Falling Bodies
    History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 7 (1): 81-89. 2004.
    This essay attempts to demonstrate that it is doubtful if Galileo's famous thought experiment concerning falling bodies in his 'Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences' (Galileo 1954: 61-64) actually does succeed in proving that Aristotle was wrong in claiming that "bodies of different weight […] move […] with different speeds which stand to one another in the same ratio as their weights," (Galileo 1954: 61). (Part I); and further that it is likewise doubtful that that argument does or even can …Read more
  •  64
    Preface to Meta2physics: New Perspectives on Analytic & Naturalised Metaphysics of Science
    Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 49 (2): 159-160. 2018.
    Metaphysics, traditionally conceived, has often been defined as the inquiry into what lies beyond or is independent of experience, but which nonetheless pertains to the fundamental structure of reality. Thus understood, metaphysics produces claims that are not empirically testable. The 20th century logical empiricists famously—and ferociously—criticised metaphysics on these grounds as being devoid of cognitive content. Despite logical empiricism’s seminal role in the genesis and propagation of t…Read more
  •  54
    Trigger Happy. Ein Kommentar zu Barbara Vetters Potentiality
    Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 69 (3): 396-402. 2015.
    This is a book review of Barbara Vetter's Potentiality. Philosophy is most intriguing when it teaches us seeing differently. Barbara Vetter’s book Po- tentiality & Possibility (OUP 2014) offers us precisely that: a new orthodoxy when it comes to our view of dispositions, possibility, and, most of all, potentiality. And it does so commendably well with the clarity of expression and the precision we often miss in the literature on causal powers and the like. Vetter writes on page 228: “This book i…Read more
  •  78
    The Emergence of Better Best System Laws
    Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 48 (3): 469-483. 2017.
    The better best system account, short BBSA, is a variation on Lewis’s theory of laws. The difference to the latter is that the BBSA suggests that best system analyses can be executed for any fixed set of properties. This affords the possibility to launch system analyses separately for the set of biological properties yielding the set of biological laws, chemical properties yielding chemical laws, and so on for the other special sciences. As such, the BBSA remains silent about possible interrelat…Read more
  •  1047
    In their recent book Every Thing Must Go, Ladyman and Ross claim: (i) Physics is analytically complete since it is the only science that cannot be left incomplete. (ii) There might not be an ontologically fundamental level. (iii) We should not admit anything into our ontology unless it has explanatory and predictive utility. In this discussion note I aim to show that the ontological commitment in implies that the completeness of no science can be achieved where no fundamental level exists. There…Read more
  •  880
    This paper explores whether it is possible to reformulate or re-interpret Lewis’s theory of fundamental laws of nature—his “best system analysis”—in such a way that it becomes a useful theory for special science laws. One major step in this enterprise is to make plausible how law candidates within best system competitions can tolerate exceptions—this is crucial because we expect special science laws to be so called “ceteris paribus laws ”. I attempt to show how this is possible and also how we c…Read more
  •  430
    Mauro Dorato * The Software of the Universe: An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of the Laws of Nature (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (E-Version) 62 (1): 225-232. 2010.
    This is a review of Mauro Dorato's book "The Software of the Universe: An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of the Laws of Nature ".
  •  2047
    Hume glaubte, die Kausalverknüpfung sei eine „secret connection“, also eine Verknüpfung, die mindestens unerkennbar, wenn nicht sogar inexis- tent ist. Einige moderne Gegner Humes halten dem entgegen, dass apos- teriorisch entdeckte, metaphysische Notwendigkeit, wie wir sie bei- spielsweise von Kripke und Putnam kennen, diejenige objektiv-reale Verknüpfung in der Welt ist, die auch die Rolle einer kausalen Verknüp- fung in der Welt spielen kann. Ich hinterfrage diese anti-Hume’sche Identifizieru…Read more
  •  172
    Hume. Metaphysics and Epistemology (edited book)
    mentis. 2010.
    The articles in this special issue of the yearbook Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy all concern, in one way or another, Hume’s epistemology and metaphysics. There are discussions of our knowledge of causal powers, the extent to which conceivability is a guide to modality, and testimony; there are also discussions of our ideas of space and time, the role in Hume’s thought of the psychological mechanism of ‘completing the union’, the role of impressions, and Hume’s argument against the …Read more
  •  102
    INTRODUCTION I. CETERIS PARIBUS LAWS An alleged law of nature—like Newton's law of gravitation—is said to be a ceteris paribus law if it does not hold under ...
  •  981
    It is widely believed that at least two developments in the last third of the 20th century have given dispositionalism—the view that powers, capacities, potencies, etc. are irreducible real properties—new credibility: (i) the many counterexamples launched against reductive analyses of dispositional predicates in terms of counterfactual conditionals and (ii) a new anti-Humean faith in necessary connections in nature which, it is said, owes a lot to Kripke’s arguments surrounding metaphysical ne…Read more
  •  666
    Better Best Systems and the Issue of CP-Laws
    Erkenntnis 79 (S10): 1787-1799. 2014.
    This paper combines two ideas: (1) That the Lewisian best system analysis of lawhood (BSA) can cope with laws that have exceptions (cf. Braddon-Mitchell in Noûs 35(2):260–277, 2001; Schrenk in The metaphysics of ceteris paribus laws. Ontos, Frankfurt, 2007). (2) That a BSA can be executed not only on the mosaic of perfectly natural properties but also on any set of special science properties (cf., inter alia, Schrenk 2007, Selected papers contributed to the sections of GAP.6, 6th international c…Read more
  •  218
    Metaphysics and science have a long but troubled relationship. In the twentieth century the Logical Positivists argued metaphysics was irrelevant and that philosophy should be guided by science. However, metaphysics and science attempt to answer many of the same, fundamental questions: What are laws of nature? What is causation? What are natural kinds? -/- In this book, Markus Schrenk examines and explains the central questions and problems in the metaphysics of science. He reviews the developme…Read more
  •  194
    Ernst Mach on the Self. The Deconstruction of the Ego as an Attempt to avoid Solipsism
    Deutscher Kongress Für Philosophie, 11. - 15. September 2011, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. 2011.
    In his Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations (Mach 1885) the phenomenalist philosopher Ernst Mach confronts us with a difficulty: “If we regard the Ego as a real unity, we become involved in the following dilemma: either we must set over against the Ego a world of unknowable entities […] or we must regard the whole world, the Egos of other people included, as comprised in our own Ego.” (Mach 1885: 21) In other words, if we start from a phenomenalist viewpoint, i.e., if we believe that …Read more
  •  120
    Since the mid-90s dispositionalism, the view that dispositions are irreducible, real properties, gained strength due to forceful counterexamples (finks and antidotes) that could be launched against Humean anti-dispositionalist attempts to reductively analyse dispositional predicates. In the light of these anti-Humean successes, and in combination with ideas surrounding metaphysical necessity put forward by Kripke and Putnam, some dispositionalists felt encouraged to propose a strong anti-Humean …Read more
  •  1245
    The Powerlessness of Necessity
    Noûs 44 (4): 725-739. 2010.
    This paper concerns anti-Humean intuitions about connections in nature. It argues for the existence of a de re link that is not necessity.Some anti-Humeans tacitly assume that metaphysical necessity can be used for all sorts of anti-Humean desires. Metaphysical necessity is thought to stick together whatever would be loose and separate in a Hume world, as if it were a kind of universal superglue.I argue that this is not feasible. Metaphysical necessity might connect synchronically co-existent pr…Read more
  •  756
    Is Proprioceptive Art Possible?

    In Graham George Priest & Damon Young (eds.), Philosophy and the Martial Arts, Routledge. pp. 101-116. 2014.
    I argue for the possibility of a proprioceptive art in addition to, for example, visual or auditory arts, where aspects of some martial arts will serve as examples of that art form. My argument is inspired by a thought of Ted Shawn’s, one of the pioneers of American modern dance: "Dance is the only art wherein we ourselves are the stuff in which it is made.” In a first step, I point out that in some practices of martial arts (in the paper I will introduce “hyongs” & “katas”), we are, too, the st…Read more
  •  594
    Many philosophers of science think that most laws of nature (even those of fundamental physics) are so called ceteris paribus laws, i.e., roughly speaking, laws with exceptions. Yet, the ceteris paribus clause of these laws is problematic. Amongst the more infamous difficulties is the danger that 'For all x: Fx ⊃ Gx, ceteris paribus' may state no more than a tautology: 'For all x: Fx ⊃ Gx, unless not'. One of the major attempts to avoid this problem (and others concerning ceteris paribus l…Read more
  •  229
    Real ceteris paribus Laws
    In R. Bluhm & C. Nimtz (eds.), Proceedings of GAP.5, Bielefeld 2003, Mentis. 2003.
    Although there is an ongoing controversy in philosophy of science about so called ceteris paribus laws that is, roughly, about laws with exceptionsóa fundamental question about those laws has been neglected (ß2). This is due to the fact that this question becomes apparent only if two different readings of ceteris paribus clauses in laws have been separated. The first reading of ceteris paribus clauses, which I will call the epistemic reading, covers applications of laws: predictions, for e…Read more
  •  302
    Galileo vs Aristotle on free falling bodies
    History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 7 (1): 1-11. 2004.
    This essay attempts to demonstrate that it is doubtful if Galileo's famous thought experiment concerning falling bodies in his 'Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences' (Galileo 1954: 61-64) actually does succeed in proving that Aristotle was wrong in claiming that "bodies of different weight […] move […] with different speeds which stand to one another in the same ratio as their weights," (Galileo 1954: 61). (Part I); and further that it is likewise doubtful that that argument does or even can es…Read more
  •  162
    The Philosophy ofLanguage belongs to the foundations of philosophical reflexion. In this volume, its central problems and strategies are explained, and the nature of sentences and other elements of language are analysed. The didactical exposition of the most important schools and thinkers makes the volume particularly interesting for readers new to the subject.
  •  14688
    Verificationist Theory of Meaning
    In U. Windhorst, M. Binder & N. Hirowaka (eds.), Encyclopaedic Reference of Neuroscience, Springer. 2008.
    The verification theory of meaning aims to characterise what it is for a sentence to be meaningful and also what kind of abstract object the meaning of a sentence is. A brief outline is given by Rudolph Carnap, one of the theory's most prominent defenders: If we knew what it would be for a given sentence to be found true then we would know what its meaning is. [...] thus the meaning of a sentence is in a certain sense identical with the way we determine its truth or falsehood; and a sentence has…Read more
  •  932
    Interfering with nomological necessity
    Philosophical Quarterly 61 (244): 577-597. 2011.
    Since causal processes can be prevented and interfered with, law-governed causation is a challenge for necessitarian theories of laws of nature. To show that there is a problematic friction between necessity and interference, I focus on David Armstrong's theory; with one proviso, his lawmaker, nomological necessity, is supposed to be instantiated as the causation of the law's second relatum whenever its first relatum is instantiated. His proviso is supposed to handle interference cases, but fail…Read more
  •  45
    Can Capacities rescue us from cp Laws
    In B. Gnassounou & M. Kistler (eds.), Dispositions in Philosophy and Science, Ashgate. pp. 221--247. 2007.
    Many philosophers of science think that most laws of nature (even those of fundamental physics) are so called ceteris paribus laws, i.e. roughly speaking, laws with exceptions. Yet, the ceteris paribus clause of these laws is problematic. Amongst the more infamous difficulties is the danger that ‘For all x: Fx then Gx, ceteris paribus’ may state no more than a tautology: ‘For all x: Fx then Gx, unless not’. One of the major attempts to avoid this problem (and others concerning ceteris paribus la…Read more
  •  878
    The striking difference between the orthodox nomological necessitation view of laws and the claims made recently by Scientific Essentialism is that on the latter interpretation laws are metaphysically necessary while they are contingent on the basis of the former. This shift is usually perceived as an upgrading: essentialism makes the laws as robust as possible. The aim of my paper—in which I contrast Brian Ellis’s Scientific Essentialism and David Armstrong’s theory of nomological necessity—is…Read more