Global ETD Search

1	Saying nothing : in defence of syntactic and semantic underdetermination Bowker, Mark January 2016 (has links) According to the Encoding Model, speakers communicate by encoding the propositions they want to communicate into sentences, in accordance with the conventions of a language L. By uttering a sentence that encodes p, the speaker says that p. Communication is successful only if the audience identifies the proposition that the speaker intends to communicate, which is achieved by decoding the uttered sentence in accordance with the conventions of L. A consequence of the Encoding Model has been the proliferation of underdetermination arguments, each of which concludes against some linguistic theory T, on the grounds that, were T true, audiences would be unable to know what was said by utterances of some particular linguistic form, and therefore unable to know what speakers intended to communicate by these utterance. The result, if we accept the conclusion of these arguments, is radical restriction of the domain of viable linguistic theory. This Thesis defends an alternative model according to which there need be nothing encoded in an uttered sentence – nothing that is said by its utterance – for the audience to retrieve. Rather, there are indefinitely many ways to interpret uttered sentences – indefinitely many routes to the propositions that speaker intend to communicate – which proceed through different interpretations of what is said. 401
2	Radical pluralism, ontological underdetermination, and the role of values in species classification Conix, Stijn January 2018 (has links) The main claim of this thesis is that value-judgments should play a profound role in the construction and evaluation of species classifications. The arguments for this claim will be presented over the course of five chapters. These are divided into two main parts; part one, which consists of the two first chapters, presents an argument for a radical form of species pluralism; part two, which comprises the remaining chapters, discusses the implications of radical species pluralism for the role of values in species classification. The content of the five chapters is as follows. Chapter 1 starts with a discussion of the theoretical assumptions concerning species and natural kinds that form the broad framework within which the arguments of the thesis are placed. The aim of this chapter is to introduce a set of relatively uncontroversial assumptions that frame the rest of the thesis. On the basis of these assumptions, chapter 2 presents an argument for radical species pluralism. The chapter substantiates this argument with a broad range of examples, and compares this position to other forms of species pluralism. Chapter 3 returns to the main interest of the thesis, namely, the role of values in species classification. It introduces the notion of values and presents an argument for the value-ladenness of taxonomy on the basis of the considerations in the first two chapters. It then sketches three important views on values in science in the literature. Chapter 4 argues that the case presented in chapter 3 provides strong support for one of these views, called the ‘Aims View’, and against two other prominent views, called the ‘Epistemic Priority View’ and the ‘Value-Free Ideal’. The resulting view, in line with the Aims View, is that value-judgments should play a particularly substantial role in species classification. Chapter 5 then considers the popular assumption that these value-judgments in taxonomy commonly take the shape of generally accepted classificatory norms, and argues that this assumption is not tenable. Finally, a brief concluding chapter points at some implications of the claims and arguments in this thesis.
3	Cortical Localization Debate With Its Historical Background Ekemen, Cengiz 01 September 2012 (has links) (PDF) The primary aim of this thesis is the consideration of neuroscientific studies regarding the localization of high-level cognitive (i.e., nonsensory and nonmotor) processes into the brain. To accomplish this aim, I briefly summarized history of the localizations which lead to the cortical localization of high-level cognitive processes. Then, I present a case study, memory consolidation to compare molecular neuroscience (MN) and cognitive neuroscience (CN) as to how they differ in their localizations. After I put forward the difference between MN and CN, I make use of Uttal&rsquo / s arguments to consider the localizations of MN and CN. His arguments resemble the underdetermination problem and pessimistic meta-induction (PMI) highly debated topic in scientific realism debate. In this respect, I examine UD and PMI with its relevance to MN and CN. BD General Philosophical Works 15250
4	The other side of the dark side : underdetermination and unconceived alternatives in science Sawkins, Corey Edwin 25 February 2011 Arguments from underdetermination take two forms, those from global sceptical underdetermination, global scientific underdetermination and local underdetermination. Arguments from global sceptical underdetermination bring into question all knowledge, they develop sceptical scenarios that purport to show that we cannot trust any knowledge that we obtain within the world. Arguments from local underdetermination aim to bring into question the nature of our knowledge and are geared against scientific realism. This thesis is an evaluation of the arguments that claim to do the latter, however it shows that these arguments are not arguments from local underdetermination but are from a type of global underdetermination that I call global scientific underdetermination. Based on this evaluation a new argument from local underdetermination is developed that attempts to show that nevertheless local underdetermination is indeed a problem for scientific realism. However, I argue that this argument also fails to undermine scientific realism. Recently Kyle Stanford has reintroduced an historical argument from underdetermination that he calls the argument from unconceived alternatives. Stanfords argument from unconceived alternatives is an inductive historical argument. It maintains that scientific theories are chosen from a non-exhaustive set of theories; claiming there is always at least one unconceived alternative that would better explain the empirical evidence. Stanfords new induction attempts to undermine scientific realism by arguing that our most successful theories will eventually be shown to be false. Various arguments against this induction will be considered. It will be shown that traditional scientific realism fails to address the argument from unconceived alternatives and the only form of scientific realism that can overcome this problem is structural realism. Philosophy Unconceived Alternatives Underdetermination Scientific Realism Cosmology Physics Science Philosophy of Science
5	The other side of the dark side : underdetermination and unconceived alternatives in science Sawkins, Corey Edwin 25 February 2011 (has links) Arguments from underdetermination take two forms, those from global sceptical underdetermination, global scientific underdetermination and local underdetermination. Arguments from global sceptical underdetermination bring into question all knowledge, they develop sceptical scenarios that purport to show that we cannot trust any knowledge that we obtain within the world. Arguments from local underdetermination aim to bring into question the nature of our knowledge and are geared against scientific realism. This thesis is an evaluation of the arguments that claim to do the latter, however it shows that these arguments are not arguments from local underdetermination but are from a type of global underdetermination that I call global scientific underdetermination. Based on this evaluation a new argument from local underdetermination is developed that attempts to show that nevertheless local underdetermination is indeed a problem for scientific realism. However, I argue that this argument also fails to undermine scientific realism. Recently Kyle Stanford has reintroduced an historical argument from underdetermination that he calls the argument from unconceived alternatives. Stanfords argument from unconceived alternatives is an inductive historical argument. It maintains that scientific theories are chosen from a non-exhaustive set of theories; claiming there is always at least one unconceived alternative that would better explain the empirical evidence. Stanfords new induction attempts to undermine scientific realism by arguing that our most successful theories will eventually be shown to be false. Various arguments against this induction will be considered. It will be shown that traditional scientific realism fails to address the argument from unconceived alternatives and the only form of scientific realism that can overcome this problem is structural realism. Philosophy Unconceived Alternatives Underdetermination Scientific Realism Cosmology Physics Science Philosophy of Science
6	Slaves of the Defunct: The Epistemic Intractability of the Hayek-Keynes Debate January 2012 (has links) abstract: The present essay addresses the epistemic difficulties involved in achieving consensus with respect to the Hayek-Keynes debate. In particular, it is argued that the debate cannot be settled on the basis of the observable evidence; or, more precisely, that the empirical implications of the theories of Hayek and Keynes are such that, regardless of what is observed, both of the theories can be interpreted as true, or at least, not falsified. Regardless of the evidence, both Hayek and Keynes can be interpreted as right. The underdetermination of theories by evidence is an old and ubiquitous problem in science. The present essay makes explicit the respects in which the empirical evidence underdetermines the choice between the theories of Hayek and Keynes. In particular, it is argued both that there are convenient responses one can offer that protect each theory from what appears to be threatening evidence (i.e., that the choice between the two theories is underdetermined in the holist sense) and that, for particular kinds of evidence, the two theories are empirically equivalent (i.e., with respect to certain kinds of evidence, the choice between the two theories is underdetermined in the contrastive sense). / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Philosophy 2012 Philosophy Philosophy of science Economics Business Cycle Theory Hayek Keynes Macroeconomics Theory Choice Underdetermination
7	Holismo e testabilidade de teorias científicas: uma análise da tese Duhem-Quine / Holism and testability of scientific theories: an analysis of the Duhem-Quine thesis Araújo, Marcus Renato Alves 28 October 2005 (has links) Submitted by Marlene Santos (marlene.bc.ufg@gmail.com) on 2016-08-12T21:02:23Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertaçao - Marcus Renato Alves Araújo - 2005.pdf: 1005611 bytes, checksum: 6433fcaab30afbca145ab9b78e615f14 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2016-08-15T13:21:00Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertaçao - Marcus Renato Alves Araújo - 2005.pdf: 1005611 bytes, checksum: 6433fcaab30afbca145ab9b78e615f14 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-15T13:21:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertaçao - Marcus Renato Alves Araújo - 2005.pdf: 1005611 bytes, checksum: 6433fcaab30afbca145ab9b78e615f14 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-10-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This is a study on Duhem-Quine thesis. Its purpose was to investigate epistemological differences and affinities between the holistic positions of Willard Quine and Pierre Duhem. This analysis showed that two quite different interpretations of Duhem-Quine thesis are possible: a weak version, argued by Duhem, and a strong version, more radical, argued by Quine in his article Two dogmas of empiricism. The study of holism, in this perspective, highlighted the importance of this subject to the Philosophy of Science and Language and how this approach can shed light on important philosophical issues, such as the relationship between scientific observations and theories; the thesis of the empirical underdetermination of theories; the theory-ladenness of observation sentences; the theory choice process; the inscrutability of reference; the theory of linguistic learning; among others. / O presente trabalho tem por objeto a tese Duhem-Quine. O que procuramos, durante o desenvolvimento da nossa dissertação, foi investigar as diferenças e afinidades epistemológicas existentes entre as posições holistas de Willard Quine e Pierre Duhem. Ao longo desse estudo, por meio da análise da obra destes dois autores, buscamos mostrar que se pode ter duas interpretações bastante diferentes da tese Duhem-Quine: uma fraca, defendida por Duhem, e uma forte, mais radical, defendida por Quine em seu artigo Dois dogmas do empirismo. Ao investigar o holismo, nessa perspectiva, tentamos destacar a importância desse tema no âmbito da Filosofia da Ciência e da Linguagem e de que forma esta abordagem pode lançar luz sobre importantes problemas filosóficos, tais como a relação entre observações e teorias científicas, a tese da subdeterminação empírica de teorias, a impregnação teórica dos enunciados observacionais, o processo de escolha de teorias, a inescrutabilidade da referência, a teoria do aprendizado linguístico, entre outros. Holismo Subdeterminação Duhem e Quine Holism Underdetermination Duhem and Quine CIENCIAS HUMANAS::FILOSOFIA
8	[en] THE ABSTRACT AND THE EMPIRICAL: FRAGILTIES IN W.V. QUINE S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE / [pt] O ABSTRATO E O EMPÍRICO: FRAGILIDADES NA TEORIA DO CONHECIMENTO DE W.V.QUINE NASTASSJA SARAMAGO DE ARAUJO PUGLIESE 01 April 2019 (has links) [pt] Ao sugerir o naturalismo como método filosófico, Quine propõe uma mudança na epistemologia tradicional: a filosofia deve ser considerada em continuidade com a ciência natural sendo preciso, portanto, abandonar o projeto de uma filosofia primeira dependente de investigações a priori. Para Quine, a metafísica não garante nenhuma segurança e a ciência com seu método de hipóteses verificáveis é o único e o melhor meio para o conhecimento. Segundo o naturalismo de Quine, não há diferença de natureza entre a ciência e filosofia, pois ambas relacionam teoria e experiência através da linguagem. Nesta dissertação, procuro mostrar por meio de um questionamento acerca da metodologia utilizada por Quine, algumas fragilidades presentes na sua perspectiva sobre o conhecimento filosófico. Minha estratégia consiste em mostrar como Quine rejeita os conceitos de a priori e analítico e procura, por meio do naturalismo e da concepção comportamentalista da linguagem, manter as teorias e seu aspecto abstrato no nível da experiência. Contudo, investigo a hipótese de que a tese da subdeterminação das teorias pela experiência fragiliza seu empirismo, pois ao ser aceita, impediria um naturalismo forte onde as teorias seriam produtos que dependeriam exclusivamente da experiência. / [en] By embracing naturalism as a philosophical method of investigation, Quine proposes a change in traditional epistemology: philosophy must be continuous with natural science, and, therefore, not based on a first philosophy dependent on a priori investigations. For Quine, metaphysics does not guarantee anything, and due to its method of verifiable hypotheses, science is the only and the best instrument of knowledge. In naturalism there is no difference of nature between science and philosophy because both relate experience and theory through language. In this dissertation, I argue that there are some weaknesses in this perspective on philosophical methodology and knowledge. My strategy is to analyze Quine s rejection of the notions of a priori and analytic and his claim that theories and their abstract aspects can be kept at the level of experience by combining naturalism with a behaviorist conception of language. I argue that the thesis of the underdetermination of theories by experience poses a problem for Quine s empiricism, and undermines a strong naturalism according to which theories depend exclusively on experience. [pt] TEORIA DO CONHECIMENTO [en] THEORY OF THE KNOWLEDGE [pt] NATURALISMO [en] NATURALISM [pt] QUINE [en] QUINE [pt] A PRIORI [en] A PRIORI [pt] SUBDETERMINACAO [en] UNDERDETERMINATION
9	The Darwinian revolution as a knowledge reorganization Zacharias, Sebastian 24 February 2015 (has links) Die Dissertation leistet drei Beiträge zur Forschung: (1) Sie entwickelt ein neuartiges vierstufiges Modell wissenschaftlicher Theorien. Dieses Modell kombiniert logisch-empiristische Ansätze (Carnap, Popper, Frege) mit Konzepten von Metaphern & Narrativen (Wittgenstein, Burke, Morgan), erlaubt so deutlich präzisiere Beschreibungen wissenschaftlicher Theorien bereit und löst/mildert Widersprüche in logisch-empiristischen Modellen. (Realismus vs. Empirismus, analytische vs. synthetische Aussagen, Unterdeterminiertheit/ Holismus, wissenschaftliche Erklärungen, Demarkation) (2) Mit diesem Modell gelingt ein Reihenvergleich sechs biologischer Theorien von Lamarck (1809), über Cuvier (1811), Geoffroy St. Hilaire (1835), Chambers (1844-60), Owen (1848-68), Wallace (1855/8) zu Darwin (1859-1872). Dieser Vergleich offenbart eine interessante Asymmetrie: Vergleicht man Darwin mit je einem Vorgänger, so bestehen zahlreiche wichtige Unterschiede. Vergleicht man ihn mit fünf Vorgängern, verschwinden diese fast völlig: Darwins originärer Beitrag zur Revolution in der Biologie des 19.Jh ist klein und seine Antwort nur eine aus einer kontinuierlichen Serie auf die empirischen Herausforderungen durch Paläontologie & Biogeographie seit Ende des 18. Jh. (3) Eine gestufte Rezeptionsanalyse zeigt, warum wir dennoch von einer Darwinschen Revolution sprechen. Zuerst zeigt eine quantitative Analyse der fast 2.000 biologischen Artikel in Britannien zwischen 1858 und 1876, dass Darwinsche Konzepte zwar wichtige Neuerungen brachten, jedoch nicht singulär herausragen. Verlässt man die Biologie und schaut sich die Rezeption bei anderen Wissenschaftlern und gebildeten Laien an, wechselt das Bild: Je weiter man aus der Biologie heraustritt, desto weniger Ebenen biologischen Wissens kennen die Rezipienten und desto sichtbarer wird Darwins Beitrag. Schließlich findet sich sein Beitrag in den abstraktesten Ebenen des biologischen Wissens: in Narrativ und Weltbild – den Ebenen die Laien rezipieren. / The dissertation makes three contributions to research: (1) It develops a novel 4-level-model of scientific theories which combines logical-empirical ideas (Carnap, Popper, Frege) with concepts of metaphors & narratives (Wittgenstein, Burke, Morgan), providing a new powerful toolbox for the analysis & comparison of scientific theories and overcoming/softening contradictions in logical-empirical models. (realism vs. empiricism, analytic vs. synthetic statements, holism, theory-laden observations, scientific explanations, demarcation) (2) Based on this model, the dissertation compares six biological theories from Lamarck (1809), via Cuvier (1811), Geoffroy St. Hilaire (1835), Chambers (1844-60), Owen (1848-68), Wallace (1855/8) to Darwin (1859-1872) and reveals an interesting asymmetry: Compared to any one of his predecessors, Darwins theory appears very original, however, compared to all five predecessor theories, many of these differences disappear and it remains but a small original contribution by Darwin. Thus, Darwin’s is but one in a continuous series of responses to the challenges posed to biology by paleontology and biogeography since the end of the 18th century. (3) A 3-level reception analysis, finally, demonstrates why we speak of a Darwinian revolution nevertheless. (i) A quantitative analysis of nearly 2.000 biological articles reveals that Darwinian concepts where indeed an important theoretical innovation – but definitely not the most important of the time. (ii) When leaving the circle of biology and moving to scientists from other disciplines or educated laymen, the landscape changes. The further outside the biological community, the shallower the audience’s knowledge – and the more visible Darwin’s original contribution. After all, most of Darwin’s contribution can be found in the narrative and worldview of 19th century biology: the only level of knowledge which laymen receive. Evolution Interpretation Rudolf Carnap Ludwig Wittgenstein Beschreibung Historische Epistemologie wissenschaftliche Revolution wissenschaftlicher Fortschritt wissenschaftliche Theorie Kontinuität Diskontinuität wissenschaftliche Erklärungen Abgrenzungskriterium Unterdeterminiertheit analytische Sätze synthetische Sätze Logischer Empirismus wissenschaftlicher Realismus Metaphern Narrative wissenschaftliche Modelle Natürliche Auslese Natürliche Selektion Kampf ums Dasein Homologie Archetype Charles Darwin Robert Chambers Richard Owen Alfred Russel Wallace Georges Cuvier Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Gottlob Frege Karl Popper evolution interpretation Rudolf Carnap Ludwig Wittgenstein Historical epistemology scientific revolution scientific progress scientific theory continuity discontinuity scientific explanations demarcation criterion underdetermination analytic statements synthetic statements logical empiricism scientific realism metaphors narratives description scientific models natural selection struggle for existence homology archetype Charles Darwin Robert Chambers Richard Owen Alfred Russel Wallace Georges Cuvier Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Gottlob Frege Karl Popper WH 2000

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