Analogies have always had an important place in the reconstruction of past cultures by archaeologists. However, archaeologists and philosophers have objected on various grounds to the importance granted to analogy. Heider proposed the use of multiple analogies—analogies incorporating several sources—as a way of overcoming these objections. However, the merits and even the meaning of this proposal have not been explored adequately. This article presents an examination of instances of multiple analogies in the archaeological literature in order to motivate an adequate account of them in terms of the Multiconstraint theory of analogy, and in order to examine their role in archaeological inference. This article does not end the debate over analogies once and for all, but it does bring some needed clarity to this issue of central importance to the philosophy of archaeology.

Neuroeconomics is a research program founded on the thesis that cognitive and neurobiological data constitute evidence for answering economic questions. I employ confirmation theory in order to reject arguments both for and against neuroeconomics. I also emphasize that some arguments for neuroeconomics will not convince the skeptics because these arguments make a contentious assumption: economics aims for predictions and deep explanations of choices in general. I then argue for neuroeconomics by appealing to a much more restrictive (and thereby skeptic-friendly) characterization of the aims of economics.

Hobbes' philosophy of geometry was eccentric to contemporary movements and worsted in specific controversy. But he laid down stipulations defining geometry and its method which might provide a significant and workable alternative “meta-geometry”. Some of these are isolated and reinterpreted here, especially those concerned with describing magnitudes, motions and quantities, and with his use of proportions. Rather than refutation of commentaries and historical rehash, the effort here is to isolate definitive texts and to offer a reinterpretation of their arguments in succinct form showing their coherence and their interdependence with his other philosophic principles.

Current axiomatizations for extensive measurement postulate the existence of infinitely small objects. This assumption is neither necessary nor reasonable. This paper develops this theme and presents a more acceptable axiom system. A representation theorem is stated and proved in detail. This work improves some previous results of the author.

In this paper it is suggested that Freud's ‘tally argument’ (Grünbaum 1984) is not best interpreted as a risky claim concerning the efficacy of psychoanalytic therapy, but as a risky claim concerning the implications of theoretical psychoanalytic explanations of the efficacy of psychoanalytic therapy. Despite the fact that Freud never empirically established that these implications hold, the ‘tally argument’ does draw attention to a critical distinction that is too often neglected in contemporary empirical studies of psychoanalysis and other forms of psychotherapy: between empirical evaluations of the efficacy of psychotherapy and empirical evaluations of theoretical explanations of the efficacy of psychotherapy, and the different forms of comparative enquiry relevant to each. It is argued that the contemporary neglect of this critical distinction, in conjunction with the common negative conception of placebo control treatments in psychotherapy research, has led to the epistemic impoverishment of experimental studies of the various professional psychotherapies. In consequence, although there is good empirical evidence for the efficacy of psychoanalysis and other forms of professional psychotherapy, there is no good empirical evidence for theoretical psychoanalytic explanations of the efficacy of psychoanalysis, or for traditional theoretical explanations of the efficacy of other forms of professional psychotherapy.

In the social sciences we hardly can create laboratory conditions, we only can try to find out which kinds of experiments Nature has carried out. Knowledge about Nature's designs can be used to infer conditions for reliable predictions. This problem was explicitly dealt with in Haavelmo's (1944) discussion of autonomous relationships, Friedman's (1953) as-if methodology, and Simon's (1961) discussions of nearly-decomposable systems. All three accounts take Marshallian partitioning as starting point, however not with a sharp ceteris paribus razor but with the blunt knife of negligibility assumptions. As will be shown, in each account reflection on which influences are negligible, for what phenomena and for how long, played a central role.

Goldman joins the ranks of epistemologists, philosophers, and science studies scholars trying to use economic models of science. For Goldman, these models are part of social rather than individual epistemics. His hope is that these models will illustrate that non-epistemic goals of individual scientists such as professional success do not necessarily undermine epistemic aims of science such as the acquisition of truth. This paper shows that there are inconsistencies between Goldman's individual and social epistemics, that these models do not live up to Goldman's standards of evaluation, and that the economic models that Goldman uses are not social.

The paper has two main aims. The first is to reformulate Hempel's version of the thesis of the symmetry of explanation and prediction, as regards the deductive covering-law model, so as to generalise it and make it no longer subject to some of the criticisms which have been directed at it (Section II). The second aim is to consider, with special critical reference to Hempel's recent treatment in Aspects of Scientific Explanation (New York and London, 1965), some central criticisms of both the constituent parts of the above symmetry thesis, viz. that adequate explanations are potentially predictive (Section III), and that adequate predictive arguments are potentially explanatory (Section IV).

A dynamical system is called chaotic if small changes to its initial conditions can create large changes in its behavior. By analogy, we call a dynamical system structurally chaotic if small changes to the equations describing the evolution of the system produce large changes in its behavior. Although there are many definitions of “chaos,” there are few mathematically precise candidate definitions of “structural chaos.” I propose a definition, and I explain two new theorems that show that a set of models is structurally chaotic if it contains a chaotic function. I conclude by discussing the relationship between structural chaos and structural stability.

In this paper, I consider ways of responding to critiques of natural kinds monism recently suggested from the pluralist camp. Even if monism is determined to be untenable in certain domains (say, about species), it might well be tenable in others. Chemistry is suggested to be such a monist-friendly domain. Suggestions of trouble for chemical kinds can be defused by attending to the difference between monism as a metaphysical thesis and as a claim about classification systems. Finally, I consider enantiomers as a test case for the monism/pluralism debate. The question of whether enantiomers differ in kind does not appear easily answerable. I suggest that this legislates for pluralism in chemistry.

Newton’s earliest publications contained scandalous epistemological claims: not only did he aim for certainty; he also claimed success. Some commentators argue that Newton ultimately gave up claims of certainty in favor of a high degree of probability. I argue that no such shift occurred. I examine the evidence of a probabilistic shift: a passage from query 23/31 of the Opticks and rule 4 of the Principia. Neither passage supports a probabilistic approach to natural philosophy. The aim of certainty, then, was an enduring feature of Newton’s methodology.

This article examines the adequacy of causal graph theory as a tool for modeling biological phenomena. I argue that the causal graph approach reaches its limits when it comes to modeling biological phenomena that involve complex spatial and chemical-structural relations. Using a case study from molecular biology, I show why causal graph models fail to adequately represent and explain biological phenomena of this kind. The inadequacy of these models is due to their failure to include relevant spatial-structural information in a way that does not render the models nonexplanatory, unmanageable, or inconsistent with basic assumptions of causal graph theory.

We lay groundwork for applying ethnographic methods in philosophy of science. We frame our analysis in terms of two tasks: (1) to identify the benefits of an ethnographic approach in philosophy of science and (2) to structure an ethnographic approach for philosophical investigation best adapted to provide information relevant to philosophical interests and epistemic values. To this end, we advocate for a purpose-guided form of cognitive ethnography that mediates between the explanatory and normative interests of philosophy of science, while maintaining openness and independence when framing such an investigation to achieve robust unbiased results.

In this article I articulate the Theory of Affective Pragmatics, which combines insights from the Basic Emotion View and the Behavioral Ecology View of emotional expressions. My core thesis is that emotional expressions are ways of manifesting one’s emotions but also of representing states of affairs, directing other people’s behaviors, and committing to future courses of actions. Since these are some of the main things we can do with language, my article’s take home message is that, from a communicative point of view, much of what we can do with language we can also do with nonverbal emotional expressions.

Philosophers of science have used various formulations of the “random mutation—natural selection” scheme to explain the development of scientific knowledge. But the uncritical acceptance of this evolutionary model has led to substantive problems concerning the relation between fact and theory. The primary difficulty lies in the fact that those who adopt this model (Popper and Kuhn, for example) are led to claim that theories arise chiefly through the processes of relatively random change. Systems theory constitutes a general criticism of this model insofar as it demonstrates the necessity of supplementing this mechanism with the non-random influences exercised by the internal organization of a system on its own development.

This paper presents an argument for the claim that historical events are unique in a nontrivial sense which entails the inapplicability of the Hempelian D-N model to historical explanations. Some previous criticisms of Hempel are shown to be general criticisms of the D-N model which can be outflanked in cases where a reduction to fundamental laws is available. I then survey grounds for denying that explanations by reasons can be effectively reduced to causal explanations, and for rejecting methodological individualism. I conclude with some positive remarks concerning the structure of historical explanations and sense in which historical events are unique.

Discussion of Wittgenstein's philosophy has suffered from a scarcity of commentators who understand his work well enough to explain it in their own words. Apart from certain notable exceptions, all too many advocates and critics alike have tended merely to repeat slogans, with approval or ridicule as the case may be. The result has been an unusual degree of polarization and acrimony—some philosophers abandoning normal critical standards, falling under the spell and becoming fanatical supporters; and others taking an equally extreme opposite view, deriding the absence of analytic technique, and refusing to see anything of value in Wittgenstein's work.

In his recent work, Michael Redhead (1986, 1987, 1989, 1990) has introduced a condition he calls robustness which, he argues, a relation must satisfy in order to be causal. He has used this condition to argue further that EPR-type correlations are neither the result of a direct causal connection between the correlated events, nor the result of a common cause associated with the source of the particle pairs which feature in these events. Andrew Elby (1992) has used this same condition as a premise in an independent argument for the conclusion that EPR-type correlations cannot be causally explained (except, perhaps, by a nonlocal hidden variable theory). I wish to argue here that robustness is itself too fragile a notion to support such conclusions.

Because Bertrand Russell adopted much of the logical symbolism of Peano, because Russell always had a high regard for the great Italian mathematician, and because Russell held the logicist thesis so strongly, many English-speaking mathematicians have been led to classify Peano as a logicist, or at least as a forerunner of the logicist school. An attempt is made here to deny this by showing that Peano's primary interest was in axiomatics, that he never used the mathematical logic developed by him for the reduction of mathematical concepts to logical concepts, and that, instead, he denied the validity of such a reduction.

This critical note concerns Harold Kincaid's “Reduction, Explanation and Empiricism” (this journal, December 1986). Kincaid criticizes methodological individualism on several grounds. The present note argues that Kincaid fails at least in his attempt to show that it is false that individualistic theory suffices to fully explain social phenomena. Kincaid's main reason for claiming that individualistic theory is insufficient is that it cannot adequately explain social kinds. The present note contends that an individualist can suitably reinterpret the social talk in question and so succeed in explaining social phenomena. In some cases his explanatory factors will presumably be direct counterparts to the holist's explanatory social kinds, whereas in some other cases they may not be—arguably need not be.