This book argues for the place of capacities within an grounds of meaning, not method. Yet it is questions of method that should concern the modern empiricist: can capacities be measured? Cartwright argues that they are measured if anything is. Stanford University's Gravity-Probe-B will measure capacities in a cryogenic dewar deep in space. More mundanely, we use probabilities to measure capacities, and the assumptions required to ensure that probabilities are a reliable instrument are investigated in the opening chapters of this book, where the early methods of econometrics set a model. The last chapter applies lessons about probabilities and capacities to quantum mechanics and the Bell inequalities. The central thesis throughout is that capacities not only can be admitted by empiricists, but indeed must be - otherwise the empirical methods of modern science will make no sense.

One of the most basic problems in the philosophy of science involves determining the extent to which nature is governed by laws. This volume presents a wide-ranging overview of the contemporary debate and includes some of its foremost participants. It begins with an extensive introduction describing the historical, logical and philosophical background of the problems dealt with in the essays. Among the topics treated in the essays is the relationship between laws of nature and causal laws as well as the role of ceteris paribus clauses in scientific explanations. Traditionally, the problem of the unity of science was intimately connected to the problem of understanding the unity of nature. This fourth volume of Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science tackles these problems as part of our consideration of the most fundamental aspects of scientific understanding.

The aim of the book is to argue for the restoration of theoretical and practical reason to economics. It presents Nancy Cartwright and Amartya Sen’s ideas as cases of this restoration and sees Aristotle as an influence on their thought. It looks at how we can use these ideas to develop a valuable understanding of practical reason for solving concrete problems in science and society. Cartwright’s capacities are real causes of events. Sen’s capabilities are the human person’s freedoms or possibilities. They relate these concepts to Aristotelian concepts. This suggests that these concepts can be combined. Sen’s capabilities are Cartwright’s capacities in the human realm; capabilities are real causes of events in economic life. Institutions allow us to deliberate on and guide our decisions about capabilities, through the use of practical reason. Institutions thus embody practical reason and infuse certain predictability into economic action. The book presents a case study: the UNDP’s HDI.​

This book explains exactly what human knowledge is. The key concepts in this book are structures and algorithms, i.e., what the readers “see” and how they make use of what they see. Thus in comparison with some other books on the philosophy (or methodology) of science, which employ a syntactic approach, the author’s approach is model theoretic or structural. Properly understood, it extends the current art and science of mathematical modeling to all fields of knowledge. The link between structure and algorithms is mathematics. But viewing “mathematics” as such a link is not exactly what readers most likely learned in school; thus, the task of this book is to explain what “mathematics” should actually mean. Chapter 1, an introductory essay, presents a general analysis of structures, algorithms and how they are to be linked. Several examples from the natural and social sciences, and from the history of knowledge, are provided in Chapters 2–6. In turn, Chapters 7 and 8 extend the analysis to include language and the mind. Structures are what the readers see. And, as abstract cultural objects, they can almost always be seen in many different ways. But certain structures, such as natural numbers and the basic theory of grammar, seem to have an absolute character. Any theory of knowledge grounded in human culture must explain how this is possible. The author’s analysis of this cultural invariance, combining insights from evolutionary theory and neuroscience, is presented in the book’s closing chapter. The book will be of interest to researchers, students and those outside academia who seek a deeper understanding of knowledge in our present-day society.

What is the origin of the concept of a law of nature? How much does it owe to theology and metaphysics? To what extent do the laws of nature permit contingency? Are there exceptions to the laws of nature? Is it possible to give a reductive analysis of lawhood, or is it a primitive? Twelve new essays by an international team of leading philosophers take up these and other central questions on the laws of nature, whilst also examining some of the most important intuitions and assumptions that have guided the debate over laws of nature since the concepts invention in the seventeenth century. Laws of Nature spans the history of philosophy and of science, contemporary metaphysics, and contemporary philosophy of science.

A longstanding question at the intersection of science, philosophy, and theology is how God might act, or not, when governing the universe. Many believe that determinism would prevent God from acting at all, since to do so would require violating the laws of nature. However, when a robust view of these laws is coupled with the kind of determinism now used in dynamics, a new model of divine action emerges. This book presents a new approach to divine action beyond the current focus on quantum mechanics and esoteric gaps in the causal order. It bases this approach on two general points. First, that there are laws of nature is not merely a metaphor. Second, laws and physical determinism are now understood in mathematically precise ways that have important implications for metaphysics. The explication of these two claims shows not only that nonviolationist divine action is possible, but there is considerably more freedom available for God to act than current models allow. By bringing a philosophical perspective to an issue often dominated by theologians and scientists, this text redresses an imbalance in the discussion around divine action. It will, therefore, be of keen interest to scholars of Philosophy and Religion, the Philosophy of Science, and Theology.

Australia and New Zealand boast an active community of scholars working in the field of history, philosophy and social studies of science. Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science aims to provide a distinctive publication outlet for their work. Each volume comprises a group of thematically-connected essays edited by scholars based in Australia or New Zealand with special expertise in that particular area. In each volume, a majority ofthe contributors are from Australia or New Zealand. Contributions from elsewhere are by no means ruled out, however, and are actively encouraged wherever appropriate to the balance of the volume in question. Earlier volumes in the series have been welcomed for significantly advancing the discussion of the topics they have dealt with. I believe that the present volume will be greeted equally enthusiastically by readers in many parts of the world. R. W. Home General Editor Australasian Studies in History And Philosophy of Science viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The majority of the papers in this collection had their origin in the 2001 Australasian Association for History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science annual conference, held at the University of Melbourne, where streams of papers on the themes of scientific realism and commonsense were organised.

Monte Johnson examines one of the most controversial aspects of Aristiotle's natural philosophy: his teleology. Is teleology about causation or explanation? Does it exclude or obviate mechanism, determinism, or materialism? Is it focused on the good of individual organisms, or is god or man the ultimate end of all processes and entities? Is teleology restricted to living things, or does it apply to the cosmos as a whole? Does it identify objectively existent causes in the world, or is it merely a heuristic for our understanding of other causal processes? Johnson argues that Aristotle's aporetic approach drives a middle course between these traditional oppositions, and avoids the dilemma, frequently urged against teleology, between backwards causation and anthropomorphism. Although these issues have been debated with extraordinary depth by Aristotle scholars, and touched upon by many in the wider philosophical and scientific community as well, there has been no comprehensive historical treatment of the issue. Aristotle is commonly considered the inventor of teleology, although the precise term originated in the eighteenth century. But if teleology means the use of ends and goals in natural science, then Aristotle was rather a critical innovator of teleological explanation. Teleological notions were widespread among his predecessors, but Aristotle rejected their conception of extrinsic causes such as mind or god as the primary causes for natural things. Aristotle's radical alternative was to assert nature itself as an internal principle of change and an end, and his teleological explanations focus on the intrinsic ends of natural substances - those ends that benefit the natural thing itself. Aristotle's use of ends was subsequently conflated with incompatible 'teleological' notions, including proofs for the existence of a providential or designer god, vitalism and animism, opposition to mechanism and non-teleological causation, and anthropocentrism. Johnson addresses these misconceptions through an elaboration of Aristotle's methodological statements, as well as an examination of the explanations actually offered in the scientific works.

This book about the philosophy of science is the second out of four volumes by Richard Ned Lebow in this book series. It not only provides a useful overview of this broad topic, but also provides deeper insight into specific topics like the philosophy of science causation, epistemology and methods, and especially on counter factual analysis.

Emerging as a hot topic in the mid-twentieth century, causality is one of the most frequently discussed issues in contemporary philosophy. Causality has been a central concept in philosophy as well as in the sciences, especially the natural sciences, dating back to its beginning in Greek thought. David Hume famously claimed that causality is the cement of the universe. In general terms, it links eventualities, predicts the consequences of action, and is the cognitive basis for the acquisition and the use of categories and concepts in the child. Indeed, how could one answer why-questions, around which early rational thought begins to revolve, without hitting on the relationships between reason and consequence, cause and effect, or without drawing these distinctions? But a comprehensive definition of causality has been notoriously hard to provide, and virtually every aspect of causation has been subject to much debate and analysis.Thinking About Causes brings together top philosophers from the United States and Europe to focus on causality as a major force in philosophical and scientific thought. Topics addressed include: ancient Stoicism and moral philosophy; the case of sacramental causality; traditional causal concepts in Descartes; Kant on transcendental laws; the influence of J. S. Mill's politics on his concept of causation; plurality in causality; causality in modern physics; causality in economics; and the concept of free will.Taken together, the essays in this collection from the Pittsburgh -Konstanz series provide the best current thinking about causality, especially as it relates to the philosophy of science.