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William L. Harper

University of Western Ontario
  •  Home
  •  Publications
    65
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 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 (65)
  •  923
    Michael Friedman on Kant and Newton
    Dialogue 39 (2): 279-. 2000.
    Isaac NewtonKant: Metaphysics and Epistemology, MiscKant: Science, Logic, and Mathematics, Misc
  •  765
    Mixed strategies and ratifiability in causal decision theory
    Erkenntnis 24 (1). 1986.
    Causal Decision Theory
  •  733
    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
  •  704
    Bayesian learning models with revision of evidence
    Philosophia 7 (2): 357-367. 1978.
    Bayesian Reasoning, Misc
  •  353
    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
    Classical Mechanics
  •  224
    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.
    Bayesian Reasoning, MiscSimplicity and ParsimonyTheoretical Virtues, Misc
  •  174
    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: [email protected].
    Isaac NewtonClassical MechanicsHistory of PhysicsHypothetico-Deductive MethodGeneral RelativityScien…Read more
    Isaac NewtonClassical MechanicsHistory of PhysicsHypothetico-Deductive MethodGeneral RelativityScientific Revolutions
  •  168
    Rational belief change, Popper functions and counterfactuals
    Synthese 30 (1-2). 1975.
    This paper uses Popper's treatment of probability and an epistemic constraint on probability assignments to conditionals to extend the Bayesian representation of rational belief so that revision of previously accepted evidence is allowed for. Results of this extension include an epistemic semantics for Lewis' theory of counterfactual conditionals and a representation for one kind of conceptual change.
    Subjunctive Conditionals, MiscBayesian Reasoning, MiscPopper: Philosophy of ProbabilityUpdating Prin…Read more
    Subjunctive Conditionals, MiscBayesian Reasoning, MiscPopper: Philosophy of ProbabilityUpdating PrinciplesEpistemological Conservatism
  •  156
    Kant on space, empirical realism and the foundations of geometry
    Topoi 3 (2): 143-161. 1984.
    Kant: Philosophy of MathematicsKant: SpaceValue Theory, MiscellaneousAutonomy
  •  154
    Kant's empirical realism and the second analogy of experience
    Synthese 47 (3). 1981.
    Kant: Transcendental IdealismKant: TimeKant: Causation
  •  146
    Do the EPR correlations pose a problem for causal decision theory?
    with Adam Koberinski and Lucas Dunlap
    Synthese (9): 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
  •  139
    Full Belief and Probability: Comments on Van Fraassen
    with Alan Hajek
    Dialogue 36 (1). 1997.
    As van Fraassen pointed out in his opening remarks, Henry Kyburg's lottery paradox has long been known to raise difficulties in attempts to represent full belief as a probability greater than or equal to p, where p is some number less than 1. Recently, Patrick Maher has pointed out that to identify full belief with probability equal to 1 presents similar difficulties. In his paper, van Fraassen investigates ways of representing full belief by personal probability which avoid the difficulties rai…Read more
    As van Fraassen pointed out in his opening remarks, Henry Kyburg's lottery paradox has long been known to raise difficulties in attempts to represent full belief as a probability greater than or equal to p, where p is some number less than 1. Recently, Patrick Maher has pointed out that to identify full belief with probability equal to 1 presents similar difficulties. In his paper, van Fraassen investigates ways of representing full belief by personal probability which avoid the difficulties raised by Maher's measure-theoretic version of the lottery paradox. Van Fraassen's more subtle representation dissolves the simple identification of full belief with maximal personal probability. His investigation exploits the richer resources for representing opinion provided by taking conditional, rather than unconditional, personal probability as fundamental. It has interesting implications for equivalent alternative approaches based on non-Archimedean probability, as well as for equivalent approaches in which assumption contexts representing full belief relative to suppositions are taken as fundamental.
    The Nature of BeliefDegrees of Belief
  •  129
    Bayesian chance
    with Sheldon J. Chow and Gemma Murray
    Synthese 186 (2): 447-474. 2012.
    This paper explores how the Bayesian program benefits from allowing for objective chance as well as subjective degree of belief. It applies David Lewis’s Principal Principle and David Christensen’s principle of informed preference to defend Howard Raiffa’s appeal to preferences between reference lotteries and scaling lotteries to represent degrees of belief. It goes on to outline the role of objective lotteries in an application of rationality axioms equivalent to the existence of a utility assi…Read more
    This paper explores how the Bayesian program benefits from allowing for objective chance as well as subjective degree of belief. It applies David Lewis’s Principal Principle and David Christensen’s principle of informed preference to defend Howard Raiffa’s appeal to preferences between reference lotteries and scaling lotteries to represent degrees of belief. It goes on to outline the role of objective lotteries in an application of rationality axioms equivalent to the existence of a utility assignment to represent preferences in Savage’s famous omelet example of a rational choice problem. An example motivating causal decision theory illustrates the need for representing subjunctive dependencies to do justice to intuitive examples where epistemic and causal independence come apart. We argue to extend Lewis’s account of chance as a guide to epistemic probability to include De Finetti’s convergence results. We explore Diachronic Dutch book arguments as illustrating commitments for treating transitions as learning experiences. Finally, we explore implications for Martingale convergence results for motivating commitment to objective chances
    Chance-Credence PrinciplesBayesian Reasoning, Misc
  •  129
    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
  •  120
    Ifs (edited book)
    with Robert Stalnaker and Glenn Pearce
    D. Reidel. 1981.
    Causal Decision Theory
  •  111
    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
  •  109
    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
  •  102
    Ratifiability, game theory, and the principle of independence of irrelevant alternatives
    with Ellery Eells
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 69 (1). 1991.
    This Article does not have an abstract
    Decision-Theoretic Frameworks, MiscCausal Decision Theory
  •  101
    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
  •  97
    Knowledge and Luck
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 34 (3): 273-283. 2010.
    Epistemic Luck
  •  96
    Foundations of Probability Theory, Statistical Inference, and Statistical Theories of Science
    Studia Logica 37 (2): 213-219. 1978.
    Logic and Philosophy of LogicApplications of ProbabilityPhilosophy of StatisticsPhilosophy of Probab…Read more
    Logic and Philosophy of LogicApplications of ProbabilityPhilosophy of StatisticsPhilosophy of Probability, Misc
  •  90
    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
    Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 6 (3): 358-360. 2000.
    Logical Expressions
  •  85
    Comments on I. J. good
    Synthese 30 (1-2). 1975.
    Value Theory, Miscellaneous
  •  84
    Kant on incongruent counterparts
    In James Van~Cleve & Robert E. Frederick (eds.), The Philosophy of Right and Left: Incongruent Counterparts and the Nature of Space, 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
  •  82
    Objective evidence and rules of strategy: Achinstein on method: Peter Achinstein: Evidence and method: Scientific strategies of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013, 177pp, $24.95 HB
    with Kent W. Staley, Henk W. de Regt, and Peter Achinstein
    Metascience 23 (3): 413-442. 2014.
    Evidence, MiscScientific MetamethodologyScientific Method, Miscellaneous
  •  79
    Comments on Westphal
    Dialogue 46 (4): 729-736. 2007.
    German Idealism
  •  73
    On Calling God ‘Mother’
    Faith and Philosophy 11 (2): 290-297. 1994.
    Philosophy of Religion
  •  73
    Rational Conceptual Change
    PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1976. 1976.
    Conceptual Change in ScienceRationalityInductive LogicBayesian Reasoning
  •  72
    The Enterprise of Knowledge: An Essay on Knowledge, Credal Probability and Chance by Isaac Levi
    Journal of Philosophy 80 (6): 367-376. 1983.
    Epistemic PossibilityFormal Epistemology, MiscEpistemic Logic, Misc
  •  71
    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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