Wybo Houkes

This study investigates PhD candidates’ (N = 391) perceptions about their research environment at a Dutch university in terms of the research climate, (un)ethical supervisory practices, and questionable research practices. We assessed whether their perceptions are related to career considerations. We gathered quantitative self-report estimations of the perceptions of PhD candidates using an online survey tool and then conducted descriptive and within-subject correlation analysis of the results. While most PhD candidates experience fair evaluation processes, openness, integrity, trust, and freedom in their research climate, many report lack of time and support, insufficient supervision, and witness questionable research practices. Results based on Spearman correlations indicate that those who experience a less healthy research environment (including experiences with unethical supervision, questionable practices, and barriers to responsible research), more often consider leaving academia and their current PhD position.

This book is about the functions of technical artefacts, material objects made to serve practical purposes; objects ranging from tablets of Aspirin to Concorde, from wooden clogs to nuclear submarines. More precisely, the book is about using and designing artefacts, about what it means to ascribe functions to them, and about the relations between using, designing and ascribing functions. In the following pages, we present a detailed account that shows how strong these relations are. Technical functions cannot be properly analysed without taking into regard the beliefs and actions of human beings, we contend. This account stays deceptively close to common sense. After all, who would deny that artefacts are for whatever purpose they are designed or used? As we shall show, however, such intentionalist accounts face staunch opposition from other accounts, such as those that focus on long-term reproduction of artefacts. These accounts are partly right and mostly wrong — and although we do take a common-sense position in the end, it is only after sophisticated analysis. Furthermore, the results of this analysis reveal that technical functions depend on a larger and more structured set of beliefs and actions than is typically supposed. Much work in the succeeding pages goes into developing an appropriate action-theoretical account, and forging a connection with function ascriptions.

A popular strategy for studying technological knowledge and arguing for epistemic emancipation is to contrast science and technology—more specifically: to look at differences between natural and engineering science. The latter is certainly not equivalent to technology. First thing to note is that most authors who develop this strategy also share a key intuition. This intuition—which is not exclusive to the contrastive strategy—is that technology is aimed at practical usefulness. Thus, whether technological knowledge concerns artefacts, processes or other items, whether engineers produce it, less socially distinguished designers, or by consumers, the prima facie reason to call such knowledge “technological” lies in its relation to human goals and actions. In addition, just as scientific knowledge is aimed at, or more tenuously related to, the truth, so technological knowledge is shaped by its relation to practical usefulness.

Wybo Houkes - A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.4 554-555 Book Review A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger Michael Friedman. A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger. Chicago: Open Court, 2000. Pp. xv + 175. Paper, $24.95. For present-day philosophers, the division between "analytic" and "continental" philosophy is a fact of life. In this elegant little book, Michael Friedman studies its origins. In earlier essays, collected in his Reconsidering Logical Positivism , Friedman argued that Carnap and other logical empiricists are best understood as adapting their Neokantian heritage to, among other things, the rapid developments in logic and physics. In A Parting of the Ways, Friedman broadens..

In recent years, attention for the work of Rudolf Carnap has shifted from polemical discussion to placing Carnap in his intellectual context. Thus, the central question is no longer whether Carnap contributes to solving our current problems, but whether he solved the problems of his day and age. This contextualist approach has resulted in a deeper and more refined understanding of, in particular, Carnap’s early works and has focused on Der logische Aufbau der Welt. This chapter aims to contribute to this understanding by contextualizing Carnap's ideal of complete formalization in the Aufbau.

In this paper, I review Quine's response to the normativity charge against naturalized epistemology. On this charge, Quine's naturalized epistemology neglects the essential normativity of the traditional theory of knowledge and hence cannot count as its successor. According to Quine, normativity is retained in naturalism as ‘the technology of truth-seeking’. I first disambiguate Quine's naturalism into three programs of increasing strength and clarify the strongest program by means of the so-called Epistemic Skinner Box. Then, I investigate two ways in which the appeal to technology as normative enterprise can be made good. I argue that neither coheres with other aspects of Quine's philosophy, most notably the elimination of intentionality. Finally, I briefly consider a third reconstruction of the response, which involves an extension of the web of “belief” to practical know-how. I conclude that the normativity of Quine's (strong) naturalism cannot be found in the technology of truth-seeking.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Die methodische Philosophie Hugo Dinglers und der transzendentale Idealismus Immanuel KantsWybo HoukesKirstin Zeyer. Die methodische Philosophie Hugo Dinglers und der transzendentale Idealismus Immanuel Kants. Hildesheim: Olms, 1999. Pp. 175. Cloth, DM 65.00.History has not been kind to Hugo Dingler. Almost half a century after his death, philosophers of science primarily know him, if at all, from brief remarks in works of Carnap and Popper. Yet anyone who bothers reading Dingler's work can only be struck by the profundity of his attempt to account for developments in mathematics and the sciences—the very factors that shaped, for instance, Carnap's early work.This merits a revival of historical interest in Dingler's philosophy. Yet, in her ambitious first book, Kirstin Zeyer intends to instigate more than that: in the final chapter, she argues that Dingler's "methodical" philosophy is still relevant to contemporary philosophy of science. This may seem a surprising finale to a book devoted to comparing Dingler's thought and Kant's critical philosophy. But in fact there is no topical discontinuity; the earlier, exegetical chapters already carry apologetic overtones and only sketch the historical context of Dingler's work.A mathematician by training and a student of—amongst others—Husserl, his work also shows the influence of Dilthey's analysis of the human will. And as the work of so many philosophers of his generation, Dingler's work was partly shaped by a dialogue with Kant. Therefore, Zeyer's choice of topic is justified. On the other hand, Dingler's background virtually guaranteed that he had to adapt the critical philosophy in places. For example: the criticism of intuition as a source of knowledge was hardly typical of [End Page 607] Dingler, but part of a broad intellectual movement, sometimes called the "crisis of intuition." Therefore, a comparison between Dingler and Kant bears the risk of being rather trivial, unless, for instance, the way in which Dingler adapted Kant is explained in reference to the historical context.Zeyer presents many similarities and differences between Dingler and Kant. Her presentation of Dingler's philosophy is detailed and precise. Dingler's originality, which is amply stressed by Zeyer, lies in his attempt to replace an "intuitive" a priori with a practical one (Herstellungsapriori), which brings out the close connection between knowledge and action, and which focuses on the will rather than the understanding. Unfortunately, however, Zeyer's explication of Kant is less systematic and is more intimately connected to the presentation of Dingler's philosophy than to its own structure. As a result, elements of the critical philosophy surface throughout the book and poignant comparisons, such as between Dingler's and Kant's appeals to "pure synthesis" (29-36), are intermingled by less informative ones, e.g., on the use of regulative ideas of reason (116-126), which fails to bring to light a clear contrast. Moreover, Zeyer presents differences between Dingler and Kant in a rather "internalist" manner, as the result of Dingler's criticism of Kant. Consequently, the emphasis lies on the way in which Dingler corrected Kant's views with respect to a more or less fixed set of problems, rather than on the way in which he attempted to adapt the critical philosophy to changing intellectual circumstances, using elements from phenomenology and Lebensphilosophie. As a result, Zeyer neglects the fact that some of Dingler's central problems, such as that of univocality (e.g., 53) and rejection of ontological presuppositions (45), are not Kantian in origin. At this point, a comparison of Dingler with his contemporaries is indispensable. Again: that certain elements of Kantianism were criticized after 1900 is hardly illuminating, but how the critical philosophy was adapted to the intellectual circumstances by various philosophers is a fascinating topic, as for instance the recent reappraisal of early logical positivism by Michael Friedman and others shows. By approaching her topic in an internalist rather than a contextualist manner, Zeyer misses an opportunity to show the relevance of Dingler's methodical philosophy.This choice of exegetical method is, of course, connected to her ultimate apologetic aim. Contextualizing Dingler's work may show the rationality of some of its elements in his...

Digital artifacts often fail to perform as expected. It has recently been argued that this should not be analyzed as software malfunctioning. Rather, every case that is not the result of hardware failures would be due to design errors. This claim, which hinges on the notion of ‘implementation’, highlights a potential fundamental difference between software and other technical artifacts. It also implies that software engineers have more extensive responsibilities than creators of other artifacts. After reconstructing the argument, we show that it rests on two presuppositions regarding the nature of software and the activities of its creators, which we call ‘complete control’ and ‘self-containedness’. Software is taken to be a self-contained unit through which the software engineer exerts complete control over a machine’s behavior. These two presuppositions as well as the usage of implementation and strong claims regarding responsibility can be found throughout the literature on software engineering. Still, we argue that the presuppositions are untenable in light of current practices. For one thing, software engineers cannot exert complete control because software has become too complex for any technique to reliably locate every fault in it. For another, the creation and running of software are nowadays heavily mediated processes involving many agential activities. As a result, the performance of digital artifacts may vary, often in undesirable ways, without either hardware failures or design errors. This undermines the conclusion that software cannot malfunction, while also revealing the complications in developing a metaphysical account of software that fits contemporary practices.

The consensus among cultural evolutionists seems to be that human cultural evolution is cumulative, which is commonly understood in the specific sense that cultural traits, especially technological traits, increase in complexity over generations. Here we argue that there is insufficient credible evidence in favor of or against this technological complexity thesis. For one thing, the few datasets that are available hardly constitute a representative sample. For another, they substantiate very specific, and usually different versions of the complexity thesis or, even worse, do not point to complexity increases. We highlight the problems our findings raise for current work in cultural-evolutionary theory, and present various suggestions for future research.

Functional claims about technical artefacts set a second stage on which theories of functions can prove themselves. We present a general framework for understanding theories of technical functions. In particular, we argue that theories of technical functions can be seen as sophisticated combinations of three archetypical accounts, which we call the intentional account, the causal-role account and the evolutionist account. These abstracted, general theories of functions apply to both biology and technology, all with their respective drawbacks and benefits. When focusing on technology these drawbacks and benefits appear complementary, suggesting that the archetypes can be combined into a tenable analysis of technical functions. We argue that straightforward combinations inherit the drawbacks of the archetypes or have new ones. Then, we show that three existing theories of technical functions – our own ICE theory and alternatives devised by Krohs and by Longy – can be taken as sophisticated combinations. In each theory, one of the archetypes is corrected by incorporating elements of the others. Finally, we consider the applicability of our three-archetype framework to function theories that apply to biology as well as to technology.

In this paper we examine the possibilities of combining two central intuitions about artefacts: that they are functional objects, and that they are non-natural objects. We do so in four steps. First we argue that, contrary to common opinion, functions cannot be the cornerstone of a characterisation of artefacts. Our argument suggests an alternative view, which characterises artefacts as objects embedded in what we call use plans. Second, we show that this plan-centred successor of the function-focused view is at odds with the non-naturalness intuition. Third, we show that this intuition can be developed by defining artefacts as produced or human-made objects, but that the resulting definition might collapse into the plan-centred view, and has trouble distinguishing artefact types or kinds. Finally, we propose a division of labour between production and use plans: among objects in general, artefacts are distinguished as human-made objects; within the domain of artefacts, types or kinds are characterised by the use plans in which artefacts are embedded.

In this paper, it is examined to what extent functions, as analysed in the philosophy of technical artefacts, can serve a role in explaining the aesthetic appreciation of these objects. The main conclusion is that, despite first appearances, so-called ‘Functional Beauty’ accounts cannot derive strength from analyses of artefact functions; on the contrary, these analyses constrain the possibilities for developing a suitable, function-based account of aesthetic appreciation. The paper follows a conceptual-engineering approach. After presenting desiderata for an account of aesthetic appreciation, relevant insights are reviewed that are drawn from philosophical work on artefact functions. Combining the desiderata and insights, three major issues are identified that complicate the relation between function ascriptions to and aesthetic appreciation of technical artefacts. In closing, options are offered for resolving these complications or avoiding them altogether.

The philosophy of artifacts is as marginal as it is one-sided. The majority of contributions to it are asides in works devoted to other subjects and focus on one characteristic feature: that artifacts are objects with functions. Indeed many artifacts, such as screwdrivers and toasters, come in functional kinds. Perhaps for this reason, philosophers elevated functions to the essences of artifacts or have developed general theories of function to describe artifacts along with their main subject: biological items. Most such theories present one monolithic notion of function that applies to both. Dissident voices claim autonomy for artifact functions, or at least a small measure of conceptual independence, but it is seldom questioned that a theory of artifacts consists merely of a theory of artifact functions.

Scientific disagreements sometimes persist even if scientists fully share results of their research. In this paper we develop an agent-based model to study the impact of diverging diagnostic values scientists may assign to the evidence, given their different background assumptions, on the emergence of polarization in the scientific community. Scientists are represented as Bayesian updaters for whom the diagnosticity of evidence is given by the Bayes factor. Our results suggest that an initial disagreement on the diagnostic value of evidence can, but does not necessarily, lead to polarization, depending on the sample size of the performed studies and the confidence interval within which scientists share their opinions. In particular, the more data scientists share,the more likely it is that the community will end up polarized.

The notion of template has recently been discussed in relation to cross-disciplinary transfer of modeling efforts and in relation to the representational content of models. We further develop and disambiguate the notion of template and find that, suitably developed, it is useful in distinguishing and analyzing different types of transfer, none of which supports a non-representationalist view of models. We illustrate our main findings with the modeling of technology substitution with Lotka-Volterra Competition equations.

In this paper we use our work in the philosophy of technology to formulate a pluralist view on artefact categories and categorisation principles, as studied in cognitive science. We argue, on the basis of classifications derived by philosophical reconstruction, that artefacts can be clustered in more than one way, and that each clustering may be taken as defining psychological artefact categories. We contrast this pluralism with essentialism and super-minimalism on artefact categories and we argue that pluralism is coherent with experimental results regarding the context-dependence of artefact categorisation

In this paper we present an action-theoretic account of artefact using and designing and describe our ICE-theory of function ascriptions to technical artefacts. By means of this account and theory we analyse the thesis of the dual nature of technical artefacts according to which descriptions of technical artefacts draw on structural and intentional conceptualisations. We show that the ascription of technical functions to technical artefacts can connect the intentional and structural parts of descriptions of artefacts, but also separate these parts. Our conclusion is that the concept of technical functions forms a ‘conceptual drawbridge’ between the intentional and structural natures of technical artefacts.Keywords: Intentional and structural descriptions; Technical artefacts; Function theory; Action theory; Use; Design

The aim of this paper is to evaluate etiological accounts of functions for the domain of technical artefacts. Etiological theories ascribe functions to items on the basis of the causal histories of those items; they apply relatively straightforwardly to the biological domain, in which neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory provides a well-developed and generally accepted background for describing the causal histories of biological items. Yet there is no well-developed and generally accepted theory for describing the causal history of artefacts, so the application of etiological theories to the technical domain is hardly straightforward. In this paper we consider the transposition of etiological theories in general from the biological to the technical domain. We argue that a number of etiological theories that appear defensible for biology become untenable for technology. We illustrate our argument by showing that the standard etiological accounts of Neander and Millikan, and some recent attempts to improve on them, provide examples of such untenable theories. 1 Introduction 2 Desiderata for theories of functions 3 Etiological theories in general 3.1 Common core and divergent aims 3.2 Reproduction versus non-reproduction etiological theories 3.3 Intentionalist versus non-intentionalist etiological theories 4 Problems for etiological theories in the technical domain 5 The failure of existing reproduction theories 6 The failure of existing non-reproduction theories 7 Improving reproduction by hybridisation 8 Conclusions.

In this paper, I study the application of phylogenetic analysis in evolutionary archaeology. I show how transfer of this apparently general analytic tool is affected by salient differences in disciplinary context. One is that archaeologists, unlike many biologists, do not regard cladistics as a tool for classification, but are primarily interested in explanation. The other is that explanation is traditionally sought in terms of individual-level rather than population-level mechanisms. The latter disciplinary difference creates an ambiguity in the application and interpretation of phylogenetic analyses. Moreover, I argue that, while archaeologists have claimed that “cladistics is useful for reconstructing artefact phylogenies”, these reconstructions only contribute minimally to the explanatory research agenda of evolutionary archaeology

Michael Weisberg has argued that robustness analysis is useful in evaluating both scientific models and their implications and that robustness analysis comes in three types that share their form and aim. We argue for three cautionary claims regarding Weisberg's reconstruction: robustness analysis may be of limited or no value in evaluating models and their implications; the unificatory reconstruction conceals that the three types of robustness differ in form and role; there is no confluence of types of robustness. We illustrate our central first claim with a case study: the application of Lotka-Volterra models to technology diffusion.

I argue that technological functions warrant specific epistemological attention, which they have not received thus far. From a user’s perspective, knowledge about the possible functions of an artefact is not provided exclusively by beliefs about its physical characteristics; it is primarily provided by know-how related to its use. Analysing the latter shows that standards of practical and not just theoretical reasoning are involved. Moreover, knowledge of the function of artefacts is primarily based on testimony and a social division of labour with respect to rational artefact use. Combining these two features, knowledge of functions can be shown to create a rich normative context, manifest in notions such as ‘improper’ use: designers inform users about how they ought to use artefacts. This normativity in knowledge of functions, which takes a different shape for possible and proper functions, is lacking in standard, descriptive knowledge.Keywords: Epistemology; Function; Knowing-how; Testimony; Artefact; Practical rationality.

The human enhancement debate typically centres on moral issues regarding changes in human nature, not on the means for these changes. We argue that one cannot grasp what is morally salient about human enhancement without understanding how technologies affect human action and practical reasoning. We present a minimalist conception of human agents as bounded practical reasoners. Then, we categorise different effects of technologies on our possibilities for action and our evaluation of these possibilities. For each, we discuss whether enhancement technologies have morally salient effects; which technologies show these effects; and whether these differ significantly from those of other, non-enhancement technologies. We conclude that enhancement technologies are morally salient in several respects, that not all enhancement technologies share all those morally salient respects, and that continuities with traditional technologies may be found in all morally salient respects.

A deflationary perspective on theories of cultural evolution, in particular dual-inheritance theory, has recently been proposed by Lewens. On this ‘pop-culture’ analysis, dual-inheritance theorists apply population thinking to cultural phenomena, without claiming that cultural items evolve by natural selection. This paper argues against this pop-culture analysis of dual-inheritance theory. First, it focuses on recent dual-inheritance models of specific patterns of cultural change. These models exemplify population thinking without a commitment to natural selection of cultural items. There are grounds, however, for doubting the added explanatory value of the models in their disciplinary context—and thus grounds for engaging in other potentially explanatory projects based on dual-inheritance theory. One such project is suggested by advocates of the theory. Some of the motivational narratives that they offer can be interpreted as setting up an adaptationist project with regard to cumulative change in cultural items. We develop this interpretation here. On it, dual-inheritance theory features two interrelated selection processes, one on the level of genetically inherited learning mechanisms, another on the level of the cultural items transmitted through these mechanisms. This interpretation identifies a need for further modelling efforts, but also offers scope for enhancing the explanatory power of dual-inheritance theory

In this paper, I present a model of application-oriented science, to supplement existing work in science and technology studies on the re-orientation of scientific research. On this “branch-formation” model, research efforts may be guided by non-epistemic values without compromising their epistemic value: they may involve completion of mechanism representations that serve control over these mechanisms while also adding to our understanding of them. I illustrate this model with a case study from photovoltaic technology, involving the possible use of materials with the so-called ‘perovskite’ structure in dye-sensitized solar cells. The paper has three parts. The first argues how existing work on the increasing application-orientedness of scientific research can and must be supplemented with a perspective from the philosophy of science. The second presents the branch-formation model, which combines central ideas of the ‘finalization-of-science’ program of the Starnberg school with recent work in ‘mechanistic’ philosophy of science and in the philosophy of technology. The third part illustrates the branch-formation model with current developments in research on perovskite solar cells.

In this paper, I develop a template-based analysis to include several elements of _processes_ through which templates are transferred between fields of inquiry. The analysis builds on Justin Price’s identification of the importance of a “landing zone” in the recipient domain, from which “conceptual pressure” may be created. I will argue that conceptual pressure is a characteristic feature of the process of template transfer; that this means that there are costs to the process of transfer as well as benefits; and that it would be reasonable if modelers try to mitigate these costs. I will discuss two such mitigation strategies: ‘conceptual embedding’ and ‘customization’. I illustrate the claims, focusing on the mitigation strategies, with a case study: that of pioneering applications of reaction–diffusion equations in mathematical ecology.

About three decades ago, the late Ronald Giere introduced a new framework for teaching scientific reasoning to science students. Giere’s framework presents a model-based alternative to the traditional statement approach—in which scientific inferences are reconstructed as explicit arguments, composed of (single-sentence) premises and a conclusion. Subsequent research in science education has shown that model-based approaches are particularly effective in teaching science students how to understand and evaluate scientific reasoning. One limitation of Giere’s framework, however, is that it covers only one type of scientific reasoning, namely the reasoning deployed in hypothesis-driven research practices. In this paper, we describe an extension of the framework. More specifically, we develop an additional model-based scheme that captures reasoning in application-oriented practices (which are very well represented in contemporary science). Our own teaching experience suggests that this extended framework is able to engage a wider audience than Giere’s original. With an eye on going beyond such anecdotal evidence, we invite our readers to test out the framework in their own teaching.