Showing papers in "Synthese in 1999"

Association, Causation, And Marginal Structural Models

Abstract: Dans le cadre de sa propre theorie formelle de l'inference causale contrefactuelle, l'A. presente quelques methodes et outils statistiques qui permettent de mesurer l'evidence des effets causaux dans les traitements a variables temporelles: l'evaluation du poids inverse a la probabilite du traitement appliquee aux parametres des modeles structurels marginaux. Distinguant les notions d'association et causation dans le contexte d'une progression lineaire ordinaire, l'A. entreprend une analyse de la sensibilite des donnees a la grandeur des facteurs non-mesures.

Ceteris Paribus, there is No problem of provisos

Abstract: Much of the literature on ceteris paribus laws is based on a misguided egalitarianism about the sciences. For example, it is commonly held that the special sciences are riddled with ceteris paribus laws; from this many commentators conclude that if the special sciences are not to be accorded a second class status, it must be ceteris paribus all the way down to fundamental physics. We argue that the (purported) laws of fundamental physics are not hedged by ceteris paribus clauses and provisos. Furthermore, we show that not only is there no persuasive analysis of the truth conditions for ceteris paribus laws, there is not even an acceptable account of how they are to be saved from triviality or how they are to be melded with standard scientific methodology. Our way out of this unsatisfactory situation to reject the widespread notion that the achievements and the scientific status of the special sciences must be understood in terms of ceteris paribus laws.

Probabilities of causation : Three counterfactual interpretations and their identification

Abstract: According to common judicial standard, judgment in favor ofplaintiff should be made if and only if it is “more probable than not” thatthe defendant's action was the cause for the plaintiff's damage (or death). This paper provides formal semantics, based on structural models ofcounterfactuals, for the probability that event x was a necessary orsufficient cause (or both) of another event y. The paper then explicates conditions under which the probability of necessary (or sufficient)causation can be learned from statistical data, and shows how data fromboth experimental and nonexperimental studies can be combined to yieldinformation that neither study alone can provide. Finally, we show thatnecessity and sufficiency are two independent aspects of causation, andthat both should be invoked in the construction of causal explanations for specific scenarios.

Are there algorithms that discover causal structure

Abstract: There have been many efforts to infer causation from association byusing statistical models. Algorithms for automating this processare a more recent innovation. In Humphreys and Freedman[(1996) British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47, 113–123] we showed that one such approach, by Spirtes et al., was fatally flawed. Here we put our arguments in a broader context and reply to Korb and Wallace [(1997) British Journal for thePhilosophy of Science 48, 543–553] and to Spirtes et al.[(1997) British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48, 555–568]. Their arguments leave our position unchanged: claims to have developed a rigorous engine for inferring causation from association are premature at best, the theorems have no implications for samples of any realistic size, and the examples used to illustrate the algorithms are indicative of failure rather than success. The gap between association and causation has yet to be bridged.

Causal Diversity and the Markov Condition

Abstract: Examinant la condition de Markov dans le contexte des techniques d'inference causale etablies par la recherche scientifique, telles que les graphiques acycliques, l'A. montre que ces methodes ne s'appliquent pas universellement a toutes les formes de causes: si elles sont pertinentes pour les modeles deterministes, elle ne le sont pas pour les causes probabilistes.

Explanation as Unification

Abstract: Parmi les modeles d'explication pragmatiques et dynamiques, fondes sur les episodes question-reponse, l'A. distingue differents types d'explication: les explications de la question pourquoi?, les explications des evenements singuliers et les explications des lois. Au-dela des paradigmes locaux que sont l'anticipation nomique (expectability) et la causalite, l'A. avance et defend le paradigme de l'explication en tant qu'unification ou coherence, synonyme d'assimilation heuristique.

Merleau-Ponty's Notion of Pre-Reflective Intentionality

Abstract: This article presents an interpretation of Merleau-Ponty's notion of pre-reflective intentionality, explicating the similarities and differences between his and Husserl's understandings of intentionality. The main difference is located in Merleau-Ponty's critique of Husserl's noesis-noema structure. Merleau-Ponty seems to claim that there can be intentional acts which are not of or about anything specific. He defines intentionality by its “directedness”, which is described as a bodily, concrete spatial motility. Merleau-Ponty's understanding of intentionality is part of his attempt to rewrite the relation between the universal and the particular. He claims that meaning is intrinsic to the phenomenal field and impossible to analyse by a distinction between form and matter. Still, Merleau-Ponty's notion of meaning and philosophy is strictly opposed to any naturalized philosophy. This becomes explicated at the end of the article, where his attempt to embody intentionality is compared to Daniel Dennett's corresponding approach.

Propositions, Numbers, And The Problem Of Arbitrary Identification

Abstract: Those inclined to believe in the existence of propositions as traditionally conceived might seek to reduce them to some other type of entity. However, parsimonious propositionalists of this type are confronted with a choice of competing candidates – for example, sets of possible worlds, and various neo-Russellian and neo-Fregean constructions. It is argued that this choice is an arbitrary one, and that it closely resembles the type of problematic choice that, as Benacerraf pointed out, bedevils the attempt to reduce numbers to sets – should the number 2 be identified with the set O or with the set O, O? An “argument from arbitrary identification” is formulated with the conclusion that propositions (and perhaps numbers) cannot be reduced away. Various responses to this argument are considered, but ultimately rejected. The paper concludes that the argument is sound: propositions, at least, are sui generis entities.

Vienna indeterminism: Mach, Boltzmann, exner

Abstract: The present paper studies a specific way of addressing the question whether the laws involving the basic constituents of nature are statistical. While most German physicists, above all Planck, treated the issues of determinism and causality within a Kantian framework, the tradition which I call Vienna Indeterminism began from Mach’s reinterpretation of causality as functional dependence. This severed the bond between causality and realism because one could no longer avail oneself of a priori categories as a criterion for empirical reality. Hence, an independent reality criterion had to be sought, a problem which all three physicists to be studied solved in different ways that were mainly conditioned by their different concepts of probability. In order to prevent a dissipation of intuited facts, Mach had to resort to a principle of unique determination as his reality criterion, especially when discussing the Principle of Least Action. Giving theories more independence, Boltzmann understood atomism as property reduction to precisely defined theoretical entities and their interactions. While this served as a relative reality criterion, he also advocated a constructivist one because atomism was already implied by our finitary reasoning power. Finally, Exner contemplated the idea that all apparently deterministic laws are only a macroscopic limit of an irreducible indeterminism, because by adopting the frequency interpretation, observable collectives could be considered as the real basic entities.

Causal interpretation in systems of equations

Abstract: Etude de la signification epistemologique et econometrique de l'interpretation naturelle et causale des equations individuelles et des systemes d'equation Examinant les notions d'invariance et d'intervention experimentale ideale, l'A rejette la pertinence de la connexion entre causation et manipulation pour rendre compte du contenu des modeles causaux, d'une part, et mesure l'utilite des epxeriences hypothetiques pour l'explication causale en science, d'autre part

Consistent Fragments of Grundgesetze and the Existence of Non-Logical Objects

Abstract: In this paper, I consider two curious subsystems ofFrege's Grundgesetze der Arithmetik: Richard Heck's predicative fragment H, consisting of schema V together with predicative second-order comprehension (in a language containing a syntactical abstraction operator), and a theory TΔ in monadic second-order logic, consisting of axiom V and Δ1 1-comprehension (in a language containing anabstraction function). I provide a consistency proof for the latter theory, thereby refuting a version of a conjecture by Heck. It is shown that both Heck and TΔ prove the existence of infinitely many non-logical objects (TΔ deriving,moreover, the nonexistence of the value-range concept). Some implications concerning the interpretation of Frege's proof of referentiality and the possibility of classifying any of these subsystems as logicist are discussed. Finally, I explore the relation of TΔ toCantor's theorem which is somewhat surprising.

Zero-value physical quantities

Abstract: To state an important fact about the photon, physicists use such expressions as (1) “the photon has zero (null, vanishing) mass” and (2) “the photon is (a) massless (particle)” interchangeably. Both (1) and (2) express the fact that the photon has no non-zero mass. However, statements (1) and (2) disagree about a further fact: (1) attributes to the photon the property of zero-masshood whereas (2) denies that the photon has any mass at all. But is there really a difference between saying that something has zero mass (charge, spin, etc.) and saying that it has no mass (charge, spin, etc.)? Does the distinction cut any physical or philosophical ice? I argue that the answer to these questions is yes. Put briefly, the claim of this paper is that some zero-value physical quantities are not mere “privations”, “absences” or “holes in being”. They are respectable properties in the same sense in which their non-zero partners are. This, I will show, has implications for the debate between two rival views of the nature of property, dispositionalism and categoricalism.

Approximation, Idealization, and Laws of Nature

Abstract: Traditional theories construe approximate truth or truthlikeness as a measure of closeness to facts, singular facts, and idealization as an act of either assuming zero of otherwise very small differences from facts or imagining ideal conditions under which scientific laws are either approximately true or will be so when the conditions are relaxed. I first explain the serious but not insurmountable difficulties for the theories of approximation, and then argue that more serious and perhaps insurmountable difficulties for the theory of idealization force us to sever its close tie to approximation. This leads to an appreciation of lawlikeness as a measure of closeness to laws, which I argue is the real measure of idealization whose main purpose is to carve nature at its joints.

Merleau-Ponty's Modification of Phenomenology: Cognition, Passion and Philosophy

Abstract: This paper problematizes the analogy that Hubert Dreyfus has presented between phenomenology and cognitive science. It argues that Dreyfus presents Merleau-Ponty's modification of Husserl's phenomenology in a misleading way. He ignores the idea of philosophy as a radical interrogation and self-responsibility that stems from Husserl's work and recurs in Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. The paper focuses on Merleau-Ponty's understanding of the phenomenological reduction. It shows that his critical idea was not to restrict the scope of Husserl's reductions but to study the conditions of possibility for the thetic acts. Merleau-Ponty argued, following Husserl's texts, that the thetic acts rest on the basis of primordial pre-thetic experience. This layer of experience cannot, by its nature, be explicated or clarified, but it can be questioned and unveiled. This is the recurrent task of phenomenological philosophy, as Merleau-Ponty understands it.

Ludwig Boltzmann's Bildtheorie and Scientific Understanding

Abstract: Boltzmann’s Bildtheorie, which asserts that scientific theories are ‘mental pictures’ having at best a partial similarity to reality, was a core element of his philosophy of science. The aim of this article is to draw attention to a neglected aspect of it, namely its significance for the issue of scientific explanation and understanding, regarded by Boltzmann as central goals of science. I argue that, in addition to being an epistemological view of the interpretation of scientific theories Boltzmann’s Bildtheorie has implications for the nature of scientific understanding. This aspect has as yet been ignored because discussion of the Bildtheorie has been restricted to the realism-instrumentalism debate. To elucidate my analysis of Boltzmann’s Bildtheorie concrete examples are presented, and the pragmatist and Darwinist roots of Boltzmann’s view are discussed. Moreover, I propose to use Boltzmann’s ideas as a starting-point for developing a novel analysis of the notion of scientific understanding, of which a brief impression is given. It shows that the study of Boltzmann’s philosophy is not only of historical interest but can be relevant also to modern philosophy of science and to the methodology of theoretical physics.

Unification – It's Magnificent But Is It Explanation?

Abstract: Etude du role de l'unification dans le processus explicatif qui releve de la formation et de la selection de la theorie. Examinant les premisses ad hoc de la theorie de l'arriere-plan (background theory), l'A. etudie la position de P. Kitcher, fondee sur le modele argumentatif de la mecanique de Newton, d'une part, et mesure le lien entre l'explication et les questions pourquoi?, d'autre part. Au-dela du modele des lois de couverture (covering-law), l'A. reinterprete la notion d'unification chez Kitcher dans le sens de l'induction.

Helm and Boltzmann: Energetics at the Lübeck naturforscherversammlung

Abstract: The energetics controversy is understood variously as energy vs. atoms, thermodynamics vs. statistical mechanics, phenomenalism vs. realism, equations vs. pictures, and especially Ostwald vs. Boltzmann. It is generally thought that at Lubeck in 1895 Boltzmann and Planck demolished energetics, but while its momentum was slowed, energetics in one or more of the above senses still retained supporters as late as the great physics conference at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. Indeed, after Ostwald himself abandoned it in 1908, Ernst Mach began for the first time to defend it. The main emphasis in this paper, however, is on Georg Helm (1851–1923) who had been invited to Lubeck to be the main speaker on energetics. He had adopted his position earlier than Ostwald and his views avoided many of the errors and oversights in Ostwald’s approach. Indeed, Helm could be called the strongest defender of energetics, even if Ostwald was Boltzmann’s main target. Helm was largely Machist in philosophy at that time and did not reify energy.

The Shooting-Room Paradox and Conditionalizing on Measurably Challenged Sets

Abstract: We provide a solution to the well-known “Shooting-Room” paradox, developed by John Leslie in connection with his Doomsday Argument. In the “Shooting-Room” paradox, the death of an individual is contingent upon an event that has a 1/36 chance of occurring, yet the relative frequency of death in the relevant population is 0.9. There are two intuitively plausible arguments, one concluding that the appropriate subjective probability of death is 1/36, the other that this probability is 0.9. How are these two values to be reconciled? We show that only the first argument is valid for a standard, countably additive probability distribution. However, both lines of reasoning are legitimate if probabilities are non-standard. The subjective probability of death rises from 1/36 to 0.9 by conditionalizing on an event that is not measurable, or whose probability is zero. Thus we can sometimes meaningfully ascribe conditional probabilities even when the event conditionalized upon is not of positive finite (or even infinitesimal) measure.

Davidson and kim on Psychophysical Laws

Abstract: Etude de la contradiction entre les lois psychophysiques et les lois de la survenance qui met en doute l'argument de Davidson developpe dans l'article intitule «Mental events». Mesurant la possibilite d'une reconciliation a partir de la position de J. Kim fondee sur l'idee d'une survenance psychophysique forte, l'A. examine les notions d'etat mental, externalisme et holisme, ainsi que les normes de rationalite et d'indetermination et le role de l'interpretant chez Davidson. Examinant les differentes interpretations et reconstructions de l'argument de Davidson, l'A. conclut en montrant qu'il n'existe pas de conditionnels psychophysiques vrais de la survenance

Boltzmann and Wittgenstein or how Pictures Became Linguistic

Abstract: Emphasis in historiography of science is naturally placed on the discoveries and inventions which scientists make and generally less on new methods of doing science, but sometimes the latter can he an important clue to help us understand the former. For example, while we all acknowledge how great the contributions of Maxwell, Boltzmann, Planck, and Einstein were to physics from roughly 1870 to 1920, we often overlook the significance of a methodological phrase which was popular during that same period, namely, what in German was called “Bildtheorie” or in English “picture theory”. But even before we can properly study its significance we have to know what the theory was, but even this presents problems, since the meaning changed. In fact, this paper is an attempt not only to describe the history of that change from Maxwell to Wittgenstein but to study in particular how Boltzmann’s conception of Bildtheorie seems to have been at least partly incorporated into the approach of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Unification: what is it, how do we reach and why do we want it?

Abstract: This article has three aims. The first is to give a partial explication of the concept of unification. My explication will be partial because I confine myself to unification of particular events, because I do not consider events of a quantitative nature, and discuss only deductive cases. The second aim is to analyze how unification can be reached. My third aim is to show that unification is an intellectual benefit. Instead of being an intellectual benefit unification could be an intellectual harm, i.e., a state of mind we should try to avoid by all means. By calling unification an intellectual benefit, we claim that this form of understanding has an intrinsic value for us. I argue that unification really has this alleged intrinsic value.

Wittgenstein on irrationals and algorithmic decidability

Abstract: L'A. se propose de replacer le traitement des nombres irrationnels chez Wittgenstein dans le contexte de sa philosophie des mathematiques, de son finitisme et de son anti-fondationnalisme, fondes sur l'idee d'un continuum mathematique et sur la revendication d'une theorie comprehensible des nombres reels. Examinant le critere de reference explicite chez J.J. da Silva, ainsi que l'idee de nombre-mesure chez Wittgenstein, l'A. montre que la presentation constructive de la procedure diagonale et que le critere de decidabilite algorithmique participent chez le philosophe de son rejet des pseudo-irrationnels et de sa critique de la theorie des ensembles

Space-time counterfactuals

Abstract: A definition is proposed to give precise meaning to the counterfactual statements that often appear in discussions of the implications of quantum mechanics. Of particular interest are counterfactual statements which involve events occurring at space-like separated points, which do not have an absolute time ordering. Some consequences of this definition are discussed.

Erotetic logic and explanation by abnormic hypotheses

Abstract: A relativized concept of a possiblecorrect answer to a why-question is introduced. Acertain procedure of looking for acceptable answers towhy-questions is analyzed in terms of erotetic logic,i.e., the logic of questions.

The sentence-type version of the tenseless theory of time

Abstract: Etude de la version phrase-type de la theorie atemporelle du temps developpee par L. A. Paul a partir d'une approche originale des conditions de verite atemporelle des phrases temporelles. Au-dela des problemes que rencontrent la theorie reflechie des occurrences et la theorie de l'analyse de la date, l'A. montre que la nouvelle version defendue par Paul echappe aux critiques recentes de W. L. Craig qui s'averent infondees.

Lessons From Quantum Mechanics

Abstract: L'A. mesure la possibilite d'une theorie de la causation qui rehabilite la notion de connexion necessaire ou n-connexion rejetee par Hume. Face aux problemes de la complexite et de la causation (a)symetrique que pose la mecanique quantique, l'A. examine les relations causales deterministes entre les occurrences (token) designees par le terme d'evenement, d'une part, et propose une revision de la theorie de l'independance probabiliste des connexions non-accidentales, d'autre part.

Learning to Coordinate; a Recursion Theoretic Perspective

Abstract: We consider two players each of whom attempts to predict the behavior of the other, using no more than the history of earlier predictions. Behaviors are limited to a pair of options, conventionally denoted by 0, 1. Such players face the problem of learning to coordinate choices. The present paper formulates their situation recursion theoretically, and investigates the prospects for success. A pair of players build up a matrix with two rows and infinitely many columns, and are said to “learn” each other if cofinitely many of the columns show the same number in both rows (either 0 or 1). Among other results we prove that there are two collections of players that force all other players to choose their camp. Each collection is composed of players that learn everyone else in the same collection, but no player that learns all members of one collection learns any member of the other.

Why Dynamical Self-Excitation Is Possible

Abstract: In Perez Laraudogoitia (1996), I introduced a simple example of a supertask that involved the possibility of spontaneous self-excitation and, therefore, of a particularly interesting form of indeterminism in classical dynamics Alper and Bridger (1998) criticised (among other things) this result In the present article, I answer their criticisms In what follows I assume familiarity both with Perez Laraudogoitia (1996) and Alper and Bridger’s subsequent article

Representation and self-awareness in intentional agents

Abstract: Several conditions for being an intrinsically intentional agent are put forward. On a first level of intentionality the agent has representations. Two kinds are described: cued and detached. An agent with both kinds is able to represent both what is prompted by the context and what is absent from it. An intermediate level of intentionality is achieved by having an inner world, that is, a coherent system of detached representations that model the world. The inner world is used, e.g., for conditional and counterfactual thinking. Contextual or indexical representations are necessary in order that the inner world relates to the actual external world and thus can be used as a basis for action. To have full-blown intentionality, the agent should also have a detached self-awareness, that is, be able to entertain self-representations that are independent of the context.

A Semantic Interpretation of Husserl's EpochÉ

Abstract: This paper presents an interpretation of Husserl's phenomenological epoche or bracketing ( Einklammerung), which makes it possible to compare his position with philosophical programs developed within the framework of modern analytical philosophy. At the same time it asks in what sense Husserl's phenomenology is a form of idealism or exceeds the traditional discussion of idealism versus realism.