Philosophy of Science

There have long been controversies about how it is that minds can fit into a physical universe. Emergence in Mind presents new essays by a group of philosophers investigating whether mental properties can be said to ‘emerge’ from the physical processes in the universe. Such emergence requires mental properties to be different from physical properties, and much of the discussion relates to what the consequences of such a difference might be in areas such as freedom of the will, and the possibility of scientific explanations of non-physical (for example, social) phenomena. The volume also extends the debate about emergence by considering the independence of chemical properties from physical properties, and investigating what would need to be the case for there to be groups that could be said to exercise rationality.

This book defends the view that the Everett interpretation of quantum theory, often called the ‘many worlds theory’, is not some new physical theory or some metaphysical addition to quantum theory, but simply quantum theory itself understood in a straightforwardly literal way. As such ‐ despite its radical implications for the nature of our universe ‐ the Everett interpretation is actually the conservative way to approach quantum theory, requiring revisions neither to our best theories of physics, nor to conventional philosophy of science. The book is in three parts. Part I explains how quantum theory implies the existence of an emergent branching structure in physical reality, and explores the conceptual and technical details of decoherence theory, the theory which allows us to quantify that branching. Part II is concerned with the problem of probability, and makes the case that probability, far from being the key difficulty for the Everett interpretation, actually makes more sense from a many‐worlds viewpoint. Part III explores the implications of an Everettian perspective on a variety of topics in physics and philosophy.

This book argues that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on contemporary science as it really is, and not on philosophers' a priori intuitions, common sense, or simplifications of science. In addition to showing how recent metaphysics has drifted away from connection with all other serious scholarly inquiry as a result of not heeding this restriction, this book demonstrates how to build a metaphysics compatible with current fundamental physics (“ontic structural realism”), which, when combined with metaphysics of the special sciences (“rainforest realism”), can be used to unify physics with the other sciences without reducing these sciences to physics itself. Taking science metaphysically seriously, this book argues, means that metaphysicians must abandon the picture of the world as composed of self-subsistent individual objects, and the paradigm of causation as the collision of such objects. The text assesses the role of information theory and complex systems theory in attempts to explain the relationship between the special sciences and physics, treading a middle road between the grand synthesis of thermodynamics and information, and eliminativism about information. The consequences of the books' metaphysical theory for central issues in the philosophy of science are explored, including the implications for the realism versus empiricism debate, the role of causation in scientific explanations, the nature of causation and laws, the status of abstract and virtual objects, and the objective reality of natural kinds.

Everywhere and Everywhen is an introduction to the ideas and arguments of the central questions that arise when physics meets philosophy: for instance, what are space and time? What are Zeno's paradoxes? Are there just three dimensions? Are there other universes? What is the shape of space and how do we know? Why does time seem to pass while space does not? What is the difference between the past and future? Is time travel possible? What is spacetime? What is time according to relativity? What is the difference between left and right? What is a quantum particle? Some of these questions are among the oldest humanity has asked about our place in the world, but some are among the most recent: the book both explores their history and the thinkers that have shaped them, and explains the fundamentals of their current understanding. Readers aren't just spectators to the journey, but are engaged in the debates. This book shows that philosophy, by analyzing fundamental concepts and their relationship to the human experience, has a great deal to say about these profound topics. They are not reserved for physics; as the book demonstrates, philosophy can not only address but help advance our view of our deepest questions about the universe, space, and time, and their implications for humanity. It is aimed at inspiring the reader to think philosophically about the universe revealed by physics.

What is meant by scientific evidence, and how can a definition of this concept be applied in the sciences to determine whether observed facts constitute evidence that a given theory is true? This book proposes and defends several objective concepts of evidence. It then explores the question of whether a scientific method, such as that represented in the four “Rules for the Study of Natural Philosophy” that Isaac Newton invoked in proving his law of gravity, can be employed in demonstrating how the proposed definitions of evidence are to be applied to real scientific cases. In answering this question, the book offers a new interpretation of Newton's controversial rules. Contrary to what many methodologists assume, whether the rules, so interpreted, can be applied in a given case to determine whether the observed phenomena provide evidence for the theory is an empirical question, not an a priori one. Finally, in order to deal with numerous cases in which evidence is insufficient to establish a theory, or where no theory is even available, the book describes and defends three scientific methods proposed by the nineteenth-century theoretical physicist James Clerk Maxwell, in the course of developing his electrical and molecular theories.

Does natural selection act primarily on individual organisms, on groups, on genes, or on whole species? This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the long-standing controversy in evolutionary biology over the levels of selection, focusing on conceptual, philosophical, and foundational questions. In the first half of the book, a systematic framework is developed for thinking about natural selection acting at multiple levels of the biological hierarchy; the framework is then used to help resolve outstanding issues. Considerable attention is paid to the concept of causality as it relates to the levels of selection, particularly the idea that natural selection at one hierarchical level can have effects that ‘filter’ up or down to other levels. Full account is taken of the recent biological literature on ‘major evolutionary transitions’ and the recent resurgence of interest in multi-level selection theory among biologists. Other biological topics discussed include Price's equation, kin and group selection, the gene's eye view, evolutionary game theory, selfish genetic elements, species and clade selection, and the evolution of individuality. Philosophical topics discussed include reductionism and holism, causation and correlation, the nature of hierarchical organization, and realism and pluralism about the levels of selection.

This book argues that we are still at a very early stage in the possible history of intelligent life on our planet and should frame our religious attitudes accordingly. Humans tend not to notice how thin is the sliver of the deep past in which all of our religious life is contained. And the aeons that may yet see intelligent life have hardly started to come into focus. But when these things are fully internalized, our whole picture of religion will change. For then we will for the first time be in a position to ask: Might there be a form of religion appropriate to such an early stage of development as our own? Though most concerned simply to get a new discussion going, this book maintains that the answer is Yes. When our place in time is fully internalized, a new form of skepticism but also new possibilities of religious life will come into view. We will find ourselves drawn to religious attitudes that, while not foregoing the idea of a transcendent ultimate, manage to do without believing and without details. This stance we will find it possible to support by argument. Thus faith can be reconciled with reason even if traditional religious belief is rationally out of bounds. And ironically it is science that should help us see this.

The incredible achievements of modern scientific theories lead most of us to embrace scientific realism: the view that our best theories offer us at least roughly accurate descriptions of otherwise inaccessible parts of the world like genes, atoms, and the big bang. This book argues that careful attention to the history of scientific investigation invites a challenge to this view that is not well represented in contemporary debates about the nature of the scientific enterprise. The historical record of scientific inquiry, the book suggests, is characterized by the problem of unconceived alternatives. Past scientists have routinely failed even to conceive of alternatives to their own theories and lines of theoretical investigation, alternatives that were both well-confirmed by the evidence available at the time and sufficiently serious as to be ultimately accepted by later scientific communities. The book supports this claim with a detailed investigation of the mid-to-late 19th-century theories of inheritance and generation proposed in turn by Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, and August Weismann. It goes on to argue that this historical pattern strongly suggests that there are equally well-confirmed and scientifically serious alternatives to our own best theories that remain currently unconceived. Moreover, this challenge is more serious than those rooted in either the so-called pessimistic induction or the underdetermination of theories by evidence, in part because existing realist responses to these latter challenges offer no relief from the problem of unconceived alternatives itself.

What distinguishes good explanations in neuroscience from bad? This book constructs and defends standards for evaluating neuroscientific explanations that are grounded in a systematic view of what neuroscientific explanations are: descriptions of multilevel mechanisms. In developing this approach, it draws on a wide range of examples in the history of neuroscience (e.g., Hodgkin and Huxley's model of the action potential and LTP as a putative explanation for different kinds of memory), as well as recent philosophical work on the nature of scientific explanation.