Many writers claim that human kinds are significantly different from biological and natural kinds. Some suggest that humans kinds are unique because social structures are essential for the etiology of human kinds. Others argue that human cultural evolution is decidedly different from other forms of evolution. In this paper I suggest that the gulf between humans and our biological relatives is not as wide as some argue. There is a taxonomic difference between human and nonhuman organisms, but such factors as social structure and cultural evolution do not distinguish us from many other organisms.

The problem in the philosophy of science which interests me beyond all others is that of constructing an abstract deductive system isomorphic with the theory of the natural sciences. Clearly, this task must be the work of many years and many minds. Some portions of it have already been accomplished; but a great deal remains to be done, and the difficulties of the problems yet unsolved impress me as formidable. I believe, however, that it would be hard to overestimate the benefits which might follow from the construction of such an abstract theory, always provided that that theory met certain conditions. Not only must the system in question measure up to the standards of rigor and precision set by the logicians, but it must also be cast in such form that a working scientist could learn to understand at least that part of it applicable to his own specialty without being forced to drop his professional work and devote the labor of years to mastering the subject.

Two distinct attitudes have been adopted by investigators in the field of the sociology of knowledge. One of them may be called speculative; the other, empirical. The central interest of an investigator having the speculative attitude lies in developing a theory of the sociology of knowledge. The central interest of investigators having the empirical attitude lies in finding out or explaining concrete phenomena; the theory is employed, implicitly or explicity, for this purpose. The existence of the two attitudes may be in part explained, as far as the German sociology of knowledge is concerned, by reference to the history of this school, which has grown out of and has been determined by a Marxist and materialistic philosophy, and especially by the use of this philosophy as a political instrument in the struggle of the emerging proletariat against the bourgeoisie. This statement, however, must be supplemented by a short location of the four most important contributors to the theory of the German sociology of knowledge. Max Scheler approaches the problem phenomenologically; he was the first and only one to ask the fundamental question, “What is knowledge?” Karl Mannheim, though markedly influenced by the Marxist viewpoint, particularly by Lukács, seems to me more adequately characterized by stressing his development from a more exclusively speculative to a more decidedly empirical attitude, which latter is especially evident in his most recent book, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction (1940). Alexander von Schelting's main contribution is his thorough logical analysis of Mannheim's theory in the light of Max Weber's methodology. Ernst Grünwald has given the most complete survey of the forerunners, the history, and the various contributions of the sociology of knowledge. These four thinkers are indirectly dependent on the historically determined emphasis of the movement on ideology in that they remain on the level of a theoretical discussion without arriving at factual research.

Perhaps the strangest controversy in the history of logic is that over the fourth figure of the syllogism. There was never any argument as to what syllogisms are valid, but merely as to how they should be arranged. Aristotle had divided syllogisms into figures according to whether the middle term was subject of one premiss and predicate of the other, or predicate of both premisses, or subject of both. Theophrastus and Eudemus subdivided the first figure into those moods in which the middle term was subject of the major premiss (and predicate of the minor) and those moods in which the middle was predicate of the major premiss (and subject of the minor). The latter moods were termed indirect. Galen said they constituted a separate figure; and so the controversy started. It has continued to the present with many writers objecting to the fourth figure, generally on grounds that it does not represent a genuine process of thought, and even ascribing this objection to Aristotle. The issue has been joined by writers who believe that it does represent a genuine process of thought.

Several variant “Newtonian” theories of inertia and gravitation are described, and their scientific usefulness discussed. An examination of these theories is used to throw light on traditional epistemological and metaphysical questions about space and time. Finally these results are examined in the light of the changes induced by the transition from “Newtonian” to general relativistic spacetime.

Several standard conditions of adequacy for confirmation are considered and a conclusion of B. Skyrms regarding the converse-consequence condition is shown to be mistaken. Widely accepted conditions such as the entailment condition and the special consequence condition are shown to be open to counterexample, and confusion about these conditions is traced to confusion about the difference between two kinds of confirmation concepts—concepts of firmness and concepts of increase in firmness. The importance of concepts of the latter sort is stressed. Finally, some suggestions are offered relating to the notion of selective confirmation.

Taking Bogen and Woodward's discussion of data and phenomena as his starting point, McAllister presents a challenge to scientific realism. I discuss this challenge and offer a suggestion for how the scientific realist could respond to both its epistemic and ontological aspects. In so doing, I urge that the scientific realist should not reject ontological pluralism from the start, but should seek to explore versions of scientific realism that leave open the possibility of certain kinds of pluralist ontology. I investigate the available options (in terms of foundationalism, reductionism, and universalism) and use a law-constitutive approach to offer a strategy for the scientific realist who is open-minded about ontological pluralism.

Many philosophers of science have recently argued that extra-academic participation in scientific knowledge production does not threaten scientific objectivity. Quite the contrary: Citizen science, participatory projects, transdisciplinary research, and other similar endeavours can even increase the objectivity of the research conducted. Simultaneously, researchers working in fields in which such participation is common have expressed worries about various ways in which it can result in biases. In this article I clarify how these arguments and worries can be compared, and how extra-academic participation can both increase and threaten the objectivity of the research conducted.

This paper explores a distinction among causal relationships that has yet to receive attention in the philosophical literature, namely, whether causal relationships are reversible or irreversible. We provide an analysis of this distinction and show how it has important implications for causal inference and modeling. This work also clarifies how various familiar puzzles involving preemption and over-determination play out differently depending on whether the causation involved is reversible.

This article examines the concept of wishful thinking in philosophical literature on science and values. It suggests that this term tends to be used in an overly broad manner that fails to distinguish between separate types of bias, mechanisms that generate biases, and general theories that might explain those mechanisms. I explain how confirmation bias is distinct from wishful thinking and why it is more useful for examining the relationship between cognitive bias and beliefs about the existence of injustices.

In cases in which many causes together bring about an effect, it is common to select some as particularly important. Philosophers since Mill have been pessimistic about analyzing this reasoning because of its variability and the multifarious causal and pragmatic details of how it works. I argue Mill was right to think these details matter but wrong that they preclude philosophical analysis of causal selection. I show that analyzing the pragmatic details of scientific debates about the important causes of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy can illuminate causal reasoning about disasters and shed new light on causality and causal selection.

Bayesian confirmation theory offers an explicatum for a pretheoretic concept of confirmation. The “problem of irrelevant conjunction” for this theory is that, according to some people's intuitions, the pretheoretic concept differs from the explicatum with regard to conjunctions involving irrelevant propositions. Previous Bayesian solutions to this problem consist in showing that irrelevant conjuncts reduce the degree of confirmation; they have the drawbacks that (i) they don't hold for all ways of measuring degree of confirmation and (ii) they don't remove the conflict with intuition but merely “soften the impact” (as Fitelson has written). A better solution, which avoids both these drawbacks, is to show that the intuition is wrong.

The current sociotechnical enterprise known as technology assessment (TA) is examined. Applying Skolimowski's analysis of epistemic possibility, the two foci of TA activities, impact analysis and policy analysis are shown to involve different logical and methodological forms. Impact analysis is shown to follow the logic of applied science while policy analysis involves the logic of technological design. Methodological implications of this distinction are isolated. Areas requiring conceptual clarification internal to TA practice are identified and limitations of the overall approach are articulated.

It has been questioned whether it is at all possible to give the term “probability” one uniform and consistent interpretation not merely in mathematics, statistics, evaluation of evidence, testing of hypotheses but also in any situation where we want to express a degree of belief. The question itself of assigning a probability to our belief in a scientific theory has raised important questions of an epistemological as well as mathematical nature.

Preliminary Remarks: Before entering into the subject matter of the paper, it may be useful to present American readers with a sketchy outline of present-day European philosophy of science, as it appeared to me at the International Congress of Philosophy of Science, held in Paris at the Sorbonne on October 15–22, 1949. The sections of which I can give a first hand impression and which are of particular interest for our subject, are those of physical science and of probability.

Developmental biology has resurfaced in recent years, often without a clearly central role for the organism. The organism is pulled in divergent directions: on the one hand, there is an important body of work that emphasizes the role of the gene in development, as executing and controlling embryological change; on the other hand, there are more theoretical approaches under which the organism disappears as little more than an instance for testing biological generalizations. I press here for the ineliminability of the organism in developmental biology on explanatory grounds. I examine classical work concerned with growth and development, particularly in Drosophila and C. elegans. Some of this work is suggestive of modular development, and accordingly suggests a level below that of the organism as being explanatory. These are not the only type of case. There are other equally well-established results, which indicate greater integration in the developing organism. Though with a modular organization the organism can be thought of as made up of its constituent traits, and though the explanations of these traits may lie in terms of cells or genes, even with modular development the explanations of “genetic” differences require an appeal to the organism. With non-modular organization the organism has an even more central role. This does not mean that these genetic or cellular contributions are unreal in any way, or that development requires some sort of vitalistic contribution; but the genetic contributions make sense only as constituents of the organism, embedded in a larger organic context.

Garber (1983) and Jeffrey (1991, 1995) have both proposed solutions to the old evidence problem. Jeffrey's solution, based on a new probability revision method called reparation, has been generalized to the case of uncertain old evidence and probabilistic new explanation in Wagner 1997, 1999. The present paper reformulates some of the latter work, highlighting the central role of Bayes factors and their associated uniformity principle, and extending the analysis to the case in which an hypothesis bears on a countable family of evidentiary propositions. This extension shows that no Garber-type approach is capable of reproducing the results of generalized reparation.