If observation is ‘theory-laden’, how can there be ‘observationally equivalent theories’? How can the observations ‘laden’ by one theory be ‘the same as’ those ‘laden’ by another? The answer might lie in the expressibility of observationally equivalent theories in a common mathematical formalism.

Biological systems exhibit complexity at all levels of organization. It has recently been argued by Michael Behe that at the biochemical level a type of complexity exists—irreducible complexity—that cannot possibly have arisen as the result of natural, evolutionary processes and must instead be the product of (supernatural) intelligent design. Recent work on self-organizing chemical reactions calls into question Behe's analysis of the origins of biochemical complexity. His central interpretative metaphor for biochemical complexity, that of the well-designed mousetrap that ceases to function if critical parts are absent, is undermined by the observation that typical biochemical systems exhibit considerable redundancy and overlap of function. Real biochemical systems, we argue, manifest redundant complexity—a characteristic result of evolutionary processes.

This paper examines Descartes' problematic relational theory of motion, especially when viewed within the context of his dynamics, the Cartesian natural laws. The work of various commentators on Cartesian motion is also surveyed, with particular emphasis placed upon the recent important texts of Garber and Des Chene. In contrast to the methodology of most previous interpretations, however, this essay employs a modern “spacetime” approach to the problem. By this means, the role of dynamics in Descartes' theory, which has often been neglected in favor of kinematic factors, is shown to be central to finding a solution to the puzzle of Cartesian motion.

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.

Fred Suppe claims that the refereed journal article is an appropriate unit of scientific debate for philosophical analysis. He also claims that when we regiment scientific papers correctly, we can see that the hypothetico-deductive method, Baysian induction, and inference to the best explanation fail to capture the structure of scientific articles adequately. In what follows I demonstrate that the coding scheme Suppe used for uncovering the structure of a scientific paper is not appropriate under all circumstances, illustrate alternative structures found in various scientific articles, and show that the hypothetico-deductive method can accommodate the alternative structures I find. My conclusions are that the article that Suppe analyzed is not paradigmatic of published scientific articles, that different papers have different structures, that the structure depends upon the rhetorical goals of the article, and that, because of the different structures and different goals, no one philosophical account of testing is going to suffice.

I defend the interpretation of the Aharonov-Bohm effect originally advanced by Aharonov and Bohm, i.e., that it is caused by an interaction between the electron and the vector potential. The defense depends on taking the fiber bundle formulation of electrodynamics literally, or almost literally.

Additional results are reported on the author's earlier generalization of Richard Jeffrey's solution to the problem of old evidence and new explanation.

GRW models of the physical world are criticized in the literature for involving wave function “tails” that allegedly create fatal interpretive problems and even compromise standard arithmetic. I find such objections both unfair and misguided. But not all is well with the GRW approach. One complaint I articulate in this paper does not have to do with tails as such but with the specific way in which past physical structures linger forever in the total GRW wave function. By pushing the total proposal towards either the “Many Worlds” approach or the Bohmian approach, this feature diminishes extant GRW claims to preferability. I suggest, however, that the problem here is just an artifact of the particular and ultimately optional genre of collapse mechanism chosen by GRW.

Quantum mechanics predicted the Aharonov-Bohm effect and violations of Bell inequalities before either phenomenon was experimentally verified. It is now commonly taken to explain both phenomena. Maudlin has pointed out significant disanalogies between these phenomena. But he has failed to appreciate the striking analogy that emerges when one examines the structure of their quantum mechanical explanations. The fact that each may be explained quantum mechanically in terms of a locally-acting, but nonseparable process suggests that the lesson of quantum nonlocality may be that while there is no action at a distance, the world is nonseparable.

We argue that Brandon and Carson's (1996) “The Indeterministic Character of Evolutionary Theory” fails to identify any indeterminism that would require evolutionary theory to be a statistical or probabilistic theory. Specifically, we argue that (1) their demonstration of a mechanism by which quantum indeterminism might “percolate up” to the biological level is irrelevant; (2) their argument that natural selection is indeterministic because it is inextricably connected with drift fails to join the issue with determinism; and (3) their view that experimental methodology in botany assumes indeterminism is both false and incompatible with the commitment to discoverable causal mechanisms underlying biological processes. We remain convinced that the probabilism of the theory of evolution is epistemically, not ontologically, motivated.

Bas van Fraassen has recently argued for a “dissolution” of Hilary Putnam's well-known model-theoretic argument. In this paper I argue that, as it stands, van Fraassen's reply to Putnam is unsuccessful. Nonetheless, it suggests the form a successful response might take.

Culp (1994) provides a defense for a form of experimental reasoning entitled ‘robustness’. Her strategy is to examine a recent episode in experimental microbiology—the case of the mistaken discovery of a bacterial organelle called a ‘mesosome’—with an eye to showing how experimenters effectively used robust experimental reasoning (or could have used robust reasoning) to refute the existence of the mesosome. My plan is to criticize Culp's assessment of the mesosome episode and to cast doubt on the epistemic significance of robustness. In turn, I present a different account of the experimental reasoning microbiologists used in arriving at the conclusion that mesosomes are artifacts. I call this form of reasoning ‘reliable process reasoning’, and close the paper with a brief discussion of how experimental microbiologists justify the claim that an experimental process is reliable.

Psychological individualism is motivated by two taxonomic principles: (i) that psychological states are individuated by their causal powers, and (ii) that causal powers supervene upon intrinsic physiological state. I distinguish two interpretations of individualism—the ‘orthodox’ and the ‘alternative‘—each of which is consistent with these motivating principles. I argue that the alternative interpretation is legitimately individualistic on the grounds that it accurately reflects the actual taxonomic practices of bona fide individualistic sciences. The classification of homeobox genes in developmental genetics provides an illustration. When applied to the taxonomy of psychological kinds, alternative individualism has some surprising consequences. In particular, externalist taxonomies of thought are consistent with the alternative interpretation, and hence consistent with individualism. I conclude, on this basis, that the individualism/externalism dispute which has long preoccupied philosophy of psychology is an empty one.

In this paper, I offer a proof that a disastrous conclusion (namely, that any observation report confirms any hypothesis) may be derived directly from two principles of qualitative confirmation which Carl Hempel called the “Converse Consequence Condition” and the “Entailment Condition.” I then discuss three strategies which a defender of the Converse Consequence Condition may deploy to save this principle.

The status of a causal approach to EPR-Bell nonlocal correlations in terms of a counterfactual framework for causation is considered. It is argued that when the relativistic spacetime structure of the events is taken into due account, the adoption of this approach is best motivated by the assumption of a preferred frame of reference, an assumption that seems even more in need of justification than the causal theory itself.

Against Hellman's (1997) recent claims, I argue that Bayesianism is unable to explain the value of generally successful aspects of scientific methodology, viz., deflecting blame from well-confirmed theories onto auxiliaries and preferring more-varied data. Such an explanation would require not just objectification of priors, but a reason to believe priors will generally fall on values that justify the practice. Given the track record on the objectification problem, adding further conditions on priors merely makes the Bayesian's problems even worse.

Bodies as conceived in macroscopic theories are loosely spoken of as participating in processes. But are there any systematic reasons for regarding processes as part of the ontology of macroscopic theory? The present paper suggests that suitable motivation can be found within a project of describing a phenomenological, macroscopic ontology for equilibrium thermodynamics, and outlines some aspects of the interrelation between continuant bodies and processes.

Jaegwon Kim's Mind in a Physical World is an argument about mental causation that provides both a metaphysical theory and a lucid commentary on contemporary philosophical views. While I strongly recommend Kim's book to anyone interested in the subject, my endorsement is not unconditional, because I cannot make the same recomendation of the subject itself. Considering arguments of Davidson, Putnam, Burge, Block, and Kim himself, I conclude that the subject turns on a variety of implausible but received arguments, and that a useful study of mental causation cannot be divorced from scientific details of cognitive psychology, physics, and neuroscience.

Ruetsche (1996) has argued that van Fraassen's (1991) Copenhagen Variant of the Modal Interpretation (CVMI) gives unsatisfactory accounts of measurement and of state preparation. I defend the CVMI against Ruetsche's first argument by using decoherence to show that the CVMI does not need to account for the measurement scenario which Ruetsche poses. I then show, however, that there is a problem concerning preparation, and the problem is more serious than the one Ruetsche focuses on. The CVMI makes no substantive predictions for the everyday processes we take to be measurements.