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William L. Harper
University of Western Ontario
  •  Home
  •  Publications
    55
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    1

 More details
  • University of Western Ontario
    Department of Philosophy
    Retired faculty
  • University of Western Ontario
    Department of Philosophy
    Unknown
University of Rochester
PhD, 1974
Homepage
London, ON, Canada
Areas of Interest
Game Theory, Misc
  • All publications (55)
  •  6
    Howard Stein on sophisticated practice of philosophers/scientists
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 71 196-208. 2020.
    Science, Logic, and Mathematics
  •  39
    The Enterprise of Knowledge: An Essay on Knowledge, Credal Probability, and Chance
    Journal of Philosophy 80 (6): 367-376. 1983.
    Formal Epistemology
  •  18
    Michael Woods. Conditionals. Edited by David Wiggins. Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, etc., 1997, ix + 152 pp. - Dorothy Edgington. Commentary. Therein, pp. 95–137 (review)
    Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 6 (3): 358-360. 2000.
    Logic and Philosophy of LogicLogical Expressions
  •  32
    Response to Kent Staley’s Comments on William Harper’s “Isaac Newton’s Scientific Method”
    Modern Schoolman 87 (3/4): 315-319. 2010.
    Isaac Newton
  •  18
    Causal and Evidential Expectations in Strategic Settings
    Philosophical Topics 21 (1): 79-97. 1993.
    Causal Decision Theory
  •  1
    Probability and Inference: Essays in Honour of Henry E. Kyburg, Jr.
    with Gregory Wheeler
    College Publications. 2007.
    Interpretation of Probability
  •  99
    Papier mâché problems in epistemology: A defense of strong internalism
    Synthese 116 (1): 27-49. 1998.
    I attempt to persuade the reader that externalism admits of no plausible interpretation. I argue that reliability is a concept with very different contours from epistemic justification, and that attempts to explicate justification in terms of reliability must fail. I address several other forms of externalism, and also mixed forms of justification. I then argue that externalist theories of justification cannot close the gap between mere true belief and knowledge. I suggest that a fourth conditio…Read more
    I attempt to persuade the reader that externalism admits of no plausible interpretation. I argue that reliability is a concept with very different contours from epistemic justification, and that attempts to explicate justification in terms of reliability must fail. I address several other forms of externalism, and also mixed forms of justification. I then argue that externalist theories of justification cannot close the gap between mere true belief and knowledge. I suggest that a fourth condition on knowledge is required, regardless of whether justification is internalist or externalist. I argue that with such a fourth condition a strong internalist theory of justification is adequate to the task that remains in making true belief knowledge. Additionally, strong internalism is more satisfying to our intuitions than externalism and mixed forms of justification.
    Epistemic Internalism and Externalism
  •  10
    Sports and Athletics
    Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 9 (1): 69-77. 1982.
    No abstract
    Sports
  •  80
    Full Belief and Probability: Comments on Van Fraassen
    with Alan Hajek
    Dialogue 36 (1): 91-. 1997.
    The Nature of BeliefDegrees of Belief
  •  246
    Inferences from phenomena in gravitational physics
    with Robert DiSalle
    Philosophy of Science 63 (3): 54. 1996.
    Newton's methodology emphasized propositions "inferred from phenomena." These rest on systematic dependencies that make phenomena measure theoretical parameters. We consider the inferences supporting Newton's inductive argument that gravitation is proportional to inertial mass. We argue that the support provided by these systematic dependencies is much stronger than that provided by bootstrap confirmation; this kind of support thus avoids some of the major objections against bootstrapping. Final…Read more
    Newton's methodology emphasized propositions "inferred from phenomena." These rest on systematic dependencies that make phenomena measure theoretical parameters. We consider the inferences supporting Newton's inductive argument that gravitation is proportional to inertial mass. We argue that the support provided by these systematic dependencies is much stronger than that provided by bootstrap confirmation; this kind of support thus avoids some of the major objections against bootstrapping. Finally we examine how contemporary testing of equivalence principles exemplifies this Newtonian methodological theme
    Science, Logic, and MathematicsPhilosophy of Physics, Miscellaneous
  •  51
    Knowledge and luck
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 34 (3): 273-283. 1996.
    Epistemic Luck
  •  1
    Knowledge and Luck
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 34 (3): 273-283. 1996.
  •  387
    Consilience and Natural Kind Reasoning (in Newton's Argument for Universal Gravitation) in An Intimate Relation. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science
    Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 116 115-152. 1989.
    Science, Logic, and MathematicsHistory of Physics
  •  1
    Causal Decision Theory and Game Theory
    In William Harper & Brian Skyrms (eds.), Causation in Decision, Belief Change, and Statistics, Springer Verlag. pp. 25-48. 1988.
    Causal Decision Theory
  •  219
    Bayesian learning models with revision of evidence
    Philosophia 7 (2): 357-367. 1978.
    Bayesian Reasoning, Misc
  •  52
    Comments on I. J. good
    Synthese 30 (1-2). 1975.
    Value Theory, Miscellaneous
  •  47
    Letters to the Editor
    with Sandra Lee Bartky, Marilyn Friedman, Alison M. Jaggar, Richard H. Miller, Abigail L. Rosenthal, Naomi Scheman, Nancy Tuana, Steven Yates, Christina Sommers, Philip E. Devine, Harry Deutsch, Michael Kelly, and Charles L. Reid
    Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 65 (7). 1992.
    Feminist Philosophy, Misc
  •  2
    David Johnson, Hume, Holism, and Miracles (review)
    Philosophy in Review 20 (6): 420-421. 2000.
    Hume's Argument against Miracles
  •  67
    Newton’s Methodology and Mercury’s Perihelion Before and After Einstein
    Philosophy of Science 74 (5): 932-942. 2007.
    Newton's methodology is significantly richer than the hypothetico-deductive model. It is informed by a richer ideal of empirical success that requires not just accurate prediction but also accurate measurement of parameters by the predicted phenomena. It accepts theory-mediated measurements and theoretical propositions as guides to research. All of these enrichments are exemplified in the classical response to Mercury's perihelion problem. Contrary to Kuhn, Newton's method endorses the radical t…Read more
    Newton's methodology is significantly richer than the hypothetico-deductive model. It is informed by a richer ideal of empirical success that requires not just accurate prediction but also accurate measurement of parameters by the predicted phenomena. It accepts theory-mediated measurements and theoretical propositions as guides to research. All of these enrichments are exemplified in the classical response to Mercury's perihelion problem. Contrary to Kuhn, Newton's method endorses the radical transition from his theory to Einstein's. The richer themes of Newton's method are strikingly realized in a challenge to general relativity from a new problem posed by Mercury's perihelion. †To contact the author, please write to: Talbot College, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7; e-mail: wlharp@uwo.ca.
    Isaac NewtonClassical MechanicsHistory of PhysicsHypothetico-Deductive MethodGeneral RelativityScien…Read more
    Isaac NewtonClassical MechanicsHistory of PhysicsHypothetico-Deductive MethodGeneral RelativityScientific Revolutions
  • 10. It All Adds Up: The Dynamic Coherence of Radical Probabilism It All Adds Up: The Dynamic Coherence of Radical Probabilism (pp. S98-S103) (review)
    with S. L. Zabell, Brian Skyrms, Elliott Sober, Malcolm R. Forster, Wayne C. Myrvold, Rob Clifton, Itamar Pitowsky, Robyn M. Dawes, and David Faust
    Philosophy of Science 69 (S3). 2002.
    Applications of ProbabilityProbabilistic PrinciplesBayesian Reasoning
  •  22
    Kant on Causality, Freedom, and Objectivity (edited book)
    with Ralf Meerbote
    Univ of Minnesota Press. 1984.
    The eight papers in this book are drawn from two conferences that honored Lewis White Beck, an influential Kant scholar.
    Kant: CausationKant: Freedom
  •  41
    Kant on incongruent counterparts
    In James Van Cleve & Robert E. Frederick (eds.), The Philosophy of Right and Left, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 263-313. 1991.
    Consider your right hand and a mirror image duplicate of it. Kant calls such pairs incongruent counterparts. According to him they have the following puzzling features. The relation and situation of the parts of your hand with respect to one another are not sufficient to distinguish it from its mirror duplicate. Nevertheless, there is a spatial difference between the two. Turn and twist them how you will, you cannot make one of them occupy the exact boundaries now occupied by the other. In his 1…Read more
    Consider your right hand and a mirror image duplicate of it. Kant calls such pairs incongruent counterparts. According to him they have the following puzzling features. The relation and situation of the parts of your hand with respect to one another are not sufficient to distinguish it from its mirror duplicate. Nevertheless, there is a spatial difference between the two. Turn and twist them how you will, you cannot make one of them occupy the exact boundaries now occupied by the other. In his 1768 paper, ‘Concerning the Ultimate Foundations of the Differentiation of Regions in Space’, Kant uses these claims to argue against relational accounts of space and goes on to argue that the difference between incongruent counterparts depends on a relation to absolute space as a whole. In his 1770 Inaugural Dissertation he argued that this difference could not be captured by concepts alone but required appeal to intuition. In the Prolegomena (1783) and again in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786) Kant appealed to these puzzling features of incongruent counterparts to support his transcendental idealism about space.
    Kant: Transcendental IdealismKant: Metaphysics and Epistemology, MiscKant: SpaceKant: Philosophy of …Read more
    Kant: Transcendental IdealismKant: Metaphysics and Epistemology, MiscKant: SpaceKant: Philosophy of Mathematics
  •  112
    Kant on space, empirical realism and the foundations of geometry
    Topoi 3 (2): 143-161. 1984.
    Kant: Philosophy of MathematicsKant: SpaceValue TheoryValue Theory, MiscellaneousAutonomy
  •  96
    Kant's empirical realism and the second analogy of experience
    Synthese 47 (3). 1981.
    Kant: Transcendental IdealismKant: TimeKant: Causation
  •  51
    On Newton’s method: William L. Harper: Isaac Newton’s scientific method: Turning data into evidence about gravity and cosmology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 360pp, $75 HB (review)
    with Nick Huggett, George E. Smith, and David Marshall Miller
    Metascience 22 (2): 215-246. 2013.
    Isaac Newton
  •  109
    Model selection, simplicity, and scientific inference
    with Wayne C. Myrvold
    Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association 2002 (3). 2002.
    The Akaike Information Criterion can be a valuable tool of scientific inference. This statistic, or any other statistical method for that matter, cannot, however, be the whole of scientific methodology. In this paper some of the limitations of Akaikean statistical methods are discussed. It is argued that the full import of empirical evidence is realized only by adopting a richer ideal of empirical success than predictive accuracy, and that the ability of a theory to turn phenomena into accurate,…Read more
    The Akaike Information Criterion can be a valuable tool of scientific inference. This statistic, or any other statistical method for that matter, cannot, however, be the whole of scientific methodology. In this paper some of the limitations of Akaikean statistical methods are discussed. It is argued that the full import of empirical evidence is realized only by adopting a richer ideal of empirical success than predictive accuracy, and that the ability of a theory to turn phenomena into accurate, agreeing measurements of causally relevant parameters contributes to the evidential support of the theory. This is illustrated by Newton's argument from orbital phenomena to the inverse-square law of gravitation.
    Theoretical VirtuesBayesian Reasoning, Misc
  •  59
    Do the EPR correlations pose a problem for causal decision theory?
    with Adam Koberinski and Lucas Dunlap
    Synthese 1-12. 2017.
    We argue that causal decision theory is no worse off than evidential decision theory in handling entanglement, regardless of one’s preferred interpretation of quantum mechanics. In recent works, Ahmed and Ahmed and Caulton : 4315–4352, 2014) have claimed the opposite; we argue that they are mistaken. Bell-type experiments are not instances of Newcomb problems, so CDT and EDT do not diverge in their recommendations. We highlight the fact that a Causal Decision Theorist should take all lawlike cor…Read more
    We argue that causal decision theory is no worse off than evidential decision theory in handling entanglement, regardless of one’s preferred interpretation of quantum mechanics. In recent works, Ahmed and Ahmed and Caulton : 4315–4352, 2014) have claimed the opposite; we argue that they are mistaken. Bell-type experiments are not instances of Newcomb problems, so CDT and EDT do not diverge in their recommendations. We highlight the fact that a Causal Decision Theorist should take all lawlike correlations into account, including potentially acausal entanglement correlations. This paper also provides a brief introduction to CDT with a motivating “small” Newcomb problem. The main point of our argument is that quantum theory does not provide grounds for favouring EDT over CDT.
    Quantum Nonlocality, MiscEvidential Decision TheoryCausal Decision Theory
  •  2
    Causation, Chance and Credence: Proceedings of the Irvine Conference on Probability and Causation Volume 1 (edited book)
    with Brian Skyrms
    . 1988.
    The papers collected here are, with three exceptions, those presented at a conference on probability and causation held at the University of California at Irvine on July 15-19, 1985. The exceptions are that David Freedman and Abner Shimony were not able to contribute the papers that they presented to this volume, and that Clark Glymour who was not able to attend the conference did contribute a paper. We would like to thank the National Science Foundation and the School of Humanities of the Unive…Read more
    The papers collected here are, with three exceptions, those presented at a conference on probability and causation held at the University of California at Irvine on July 15-19, 1985. The exceptions are that David Freedman and Abner Shimony were not able to contribute the papers that they presented to this volume, and that Clark Glymour who was not able to attend the conference did contribute a paper. We would like to thank the National Science Foundation and the School of Humanities of the University of California at Irvine for generous support. WILLIAM HARPER University of Western Ontario BRIAN SKYRMS University of California at Irvine VII INTRODUCTION TO CAUSATION, CHANCE, AND CREDENCE The search for causes is so central to science that it has sometimes been taken as the defining attribute of the scientific enterprise. Yet even after twenty-five centuries of philosophical analysis the meaning of "cause" is still a matter of controversy, among scientists as well as philosophers. Part of the problem is that the servicable concepts of causation built out of Necessity, Sufficiency, Locality, and Temporal Precedence were constructed for a deterministic world-view which has been obsolete since the advent of quantum theory. A physically credible theory of causation must be, at basis, statistical. And statistical analyses of caus­ ation may be of interest even when an underlying deterministic theory is assumed, as in classical statistical mechanics.
    Theories of CausationProbabilistic CausationChance and Determinism
  •  31
    Kant and the Exact Sciences
    with Michael Friedman
    Philosophical Review 104 (4): 587. 1995.
    This is a very important book. It has already become required reading for researchers on the relation between the exact sciences and Kant’s philosophy. The main theme is that Kant’s continuing program to find a metaphysics that could provide a foundation for the science of his day is of crucial importance to understanding the development of his philosophical thought from its earliest precritical beginnings in the thesis of 1747, right through the highwater years of the critical philosophy, to hi…Read more
    This is a very important book. It has already become required reading for researchers on the relation between the exact sciences and Kant’s philosophy. The main theme is that Kant’s continuing program to find a metaphysics that could provide a foundation for the science of his day is of crucial importance to understanding the development of his philosophical thought from its earliest precritical beginnings in the thesis of 1747, right through the highwater years of the critical philosophy, to his last unpublished writings in the Opus postumum. In the course of articulating this theme, Friedman has made extensive use of detailed historical information about their scientific and mathematical background to illuminate Kant’s texts. Over and over again, such information is used to suggest interesting and quite subtle interpretations for texts that may have seemed puzzling or just wrong-headed.
    Kant: Philosophy of ScienceKant: Philosophy of Mathematics
  •  19
    Model Selection, Simplicity, and Scientific Inference
    with Wayne C. Myrvold
    Philosophy of Science 69 (S3). 2002.
    The Akaike Information Criterion can be a valuable tool of scientific inference. This statistic, or any other statistical method for that matter, cannot, however, be the whole of scientific methodology. In this paper some of the limitations of Akaikean statistical methods are discussed. It is argued that the full import of empirical evidence is realized only by adopting a richer ideal of empirical success than predictive accuracy, and that the ability of a theory to turn phenomena into accurate,…Read more
    The Akaike Information Criterion can be a valuable tool of scientific inference. This statistic, or any other statistical method for that matter, cannot, however, be the whole of scientific methodology. In this paper some of the limitations of Akaikean statistical methods are discussed. It is argued that the full import of empirical evidence is realized only by adopting a richer ideal of empirical success than predictive accuracy, and that the ability of a theory to turn phenomena into accurate, agreeing measurements of causally relevant parameters contributes to the evidential support of the theory. This is illustrated by Newton’s argument from orbital phenomena to the inverse‐square law of gravitation.
    Simplicity and ParsimonyTheories and Models, MiscPhilosophy of StatisticsConfirmation, Misc
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