Phillip Wiebe
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195140125
- eISBN:
- 9780199835492
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195140125.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter, central to this book, elaborates on the theory of spirits that has been advanced to explain numerous kinds of phenomena, a few of which were sampled in the first two chapters. The ...
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This chapter, central to this book, elaborates on the theory of spirits that has been advanced to explain numerous kinds of phenomena, a few of which were sampled in the first two chapters. The importance of abductive argument in advancing the existence of unobservable beings or objects, as opposed to deductive and probabilistic reasoning, is defended. The theory of spirits is construed as empiricist in character, whose descriptions are sometimes theory-laden and whose postulated beings are contextually defined primarily by the causal roles these postulated beings play in the theory. The view of physical objects advanced by phenomenalism, such as that found in many logical positivists, is examined, with a view to explaining how it illuminates challenges that beset an empirical approach to religion. The boundary of naturalism is discussed, especially inasmuch as the spirits postulated to exist in religion are definable by their causal links to phenomena or objects that are unquestionable naturalistic.Less
This chapter, central to this book, elaborates on the theory of spirits that has been advanced to explain numerous kinds of phenomena, a few of which were sampled in the first two chapters. The importance of abductive argument in advancing the existence of unobservable beings or objects, as opposed to deductive and probabilistic reasoning, is defended. The theory of spirits is construed as empiricist in character, whose descriptions are sometimes theory-laden and whose postulated beings are contextually defined primarily by the causal roles these postulated beings play in the theory. The view of physical objects advanced by phenomenalism, such as that found in many logical positivists, is examined, with a view to explaining how it illuminates challenges that beset an empirical approach to religion. The boundary of naturalism is discussed, especially inasmuch as the spirits postulated to exist in religion are definable by their causal links to phenomena or objects that are unquestionable naturalistic.
Kjetil Anders Hatlebrekke
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780748691838
- eISBN:
- 9781474465304
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748691838.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Security Studies
Why is intelligence so hard to define? Why is there no systematic or adequate theory of intelligence? This book argues that classic intelligence production has been premised on an ill-founded belief ...
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Why is intelligence so hard to define? Why is there no systematic or adequate theory of intelligence? This book argues that classic intelligence production has been premised on an ill-founded belief in an automatic inference between history and the future, and that the lack of a working theory has exacerbated this problem. The book uses classic cases of intelligence failure to demonstrate how this problem creates a restricted language in intelligence communities that undermines threat perception. From these cases it concludes that intelligence needs to be re-thought, and argues that good intelligence is the art of threat perception beyond the limits of our habitual thinking and shared experience. This book therefore argues that intelligence can never be truths, only uncertain theories about the future. Qualified intelligence work is, accordingly, ideas that lead to theories about the future. These theories should always seek to explain a comprehension of the wholeness of threats. The hypothesis derived from these theories must thereafter be tested, as tests that make the theories less uncertain. This implies that intelligence never can be anything but uncertain theories about the future that are made less uncertain through scientific, critical tests of hypotheses derived from these theories. High quality intelligence institutions conduct these tests in what is known as the intelligence cycle. This cycle works well if it mirrors good thinking.Less
Why is intelligence so hard to define? Why is there no systematic or adequate theory of intelligence? This book argues that classic intelligence production has been premised on an ill-founded belief in an automatic inference between history and the future, and that the lack of a working theory has exacerbated this problem. The book uses classic cases of intelligence failure to demonstrate how this problem creates a restricted language in intelligence communities that undermines threat perception. From these cases it concludes that intelligence needs to be re-thought, and argues that good intelligence is the art of threat perception beyond the limits of our habitual thinking and shared experience. This book therefore argues that intelligence can never be truths, only uncertain theories about the future. Qualified intelligence work is, accordingly, ideas that lead to theories about the future. These theories should always seek to explain a comprehension of the wholeness of threats. The hypothesis derived from these theories must thereafter be tested, as tests that make the theories less uncertain. This implies that intelligence never can be anything but uncertain theories about the future that are made less uncertain through scientific, critical tests of hypotheses derived from these theories. High quality intelligence institutions conduct these tests in what is known as the intelligence cycle. This cycle works well if it mirrors good thinking.
Christopher Peacocke
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- April 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780199270729
- eISBN:
- 9780191600944
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199270724.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Argues that the same principles of complexity reduction that he used to explain principles of perceptual entitlement in the preceding chapter can be used to explain the principles of inductive ...
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Argues that the same principles of complexity reduction that he used to explain principles of perceptual entitlement in the preceding chapter can be used to explain the principles of inductive inference. When we have a sound, non‐conclusive inductive inference from a variety of Fs being G to the conclusion that all Fs are G, this holds because the easiest way for the evidence to hold is one that also makes it the case that all Fs are G. Clarifies and elaborates this thesis and traces out its consequences.Less
Argues that the same principles of complexity reduction that he used to explain principles of perceptual entitlement in the preceding chapter can be used to explain the principles of inductive inference. When we have a sound, non‐conclusive inductive inference from a variety of Fs being G to the conclusion that all Fs are G, this holds because the easiest way for the evidence to hold is one that also makes it the case that all Fs are G. Clarifies and elaborates this thesis and traces out its consequences.
Naomi Oreskes
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780195117325
- eISBN:
- 9780197561188
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780195117325.003.0012
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Geology and the Lithosphere
If continental drift was not rejected for lack of a mechanism, why was it rejected? Some say the time was not ripe. Historical evidence suggests the ...
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If continental drift was not rejected for lack of a mechanism, why was it rejected? Some say the time was not ripe. Historical evidence suggests the reverse. The retreat of the thermal contraction theory in the face of radioactive heat generation, the conflict between isostasy and land bridges, and the controversy that Wegener’s theory provoked all show that the time was ripe for a new theory. In 1921, Reginald Daly complained to Walter Lambert about the “bankruptcy in decent theories of mountain-building.” Chester Longwell opined in 1926 that the “displacement hypothesis, in its general form . . . promises a solution of certain troublesome enigmas.” A year later, William Bowie suggested in a letter to Charles Schuchert that it was time for “a long talk on some of the major problems of the earth’s structure and the processes which have caused surface change. The time is ripe for an attack on these larger phases of geology.” One possibility is that the fault lay with Wegener himself, that his deficiencies as a scientist discredited his theory. Wegener was in fact abundantly criticized for his lack of objectivity. In a review of The Origin of Continents, British geologist Philip Lake accused him of being “quite devoid of critical faculty.” No doubt Wegener sometimes expressed himself incautiously. But emphatic language characterized both sides of the drift debate, as well as later discussions of plate tectonics. The strength of the arguments was more an effect than a cause of what was at stake. Some have blamed Wegener’s training, disciplinary affiliations, or nationality for the rejection of his theory, but these arguments lack credibility. Wegener’s contributions to meteorology and geophysics were widely recognized; his death in 1930 prompted a full-page obituary in Nature, which recounted his pioneering contributions to meteorology and mourned his passing as “a great loss to geophysical science.” Being a disciplinary outsider can be an advantage — it probably was for Arthur Holmes when he first embarked on the radiometric time scale. To be sure, there were nation alistic tensions in international science in the early 1920s— German earth scientists complained bitterly over their exclusion from international geodetic and geophysical commissions— but by the late 1920s the theory of continental drift was associated as much with Joly and Holmes as it was with Wegener.
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If continental drift was not rejected for lack of a mechanism, why was it rejected? Some say the time was not ripe. Historical evidence suggests the reverse. The retreat of the thermal contraction theory in the face of radioactive heat generation, the conflict between isostasy and land bridges, and the controversy that Wegener’s theory provoked all show that the time was ripe for a new theory. In 1921, Reginald Daly complained to Walter Lambert about the “bankruptcy in decent theories of mountain-building.” Chester Longwell opined in 1926 that the “displacement hypothesis, in its general form . . . promises a solution of certain troublesome enigmas.” A year later, William Bowie suggested in a letter to Charles Schuchert that it was time for “a long talk on some of the major problems of the earth’s structure and the processes which have caused surface change. The time is ripe for an attack on these larger phases of geology.” One possibility is that the fault lay with Wegener himself, that his deficiencies as a scientist discredited his theory. Wegener was in fact abundantly criticized for his lack of objectivity. In a review of The Origin of Continents, British geologist Philip Lake accused him of being “quite devoid of critical faculty.” No doubt Wegener sometimes expressed himself incautiously. But emphatic language characterized both sides of the drift debate, as well as later discussions of plate tectonics. The strength of the arguments was more an effect than a cause of what was at stake. Some have blamed Wegener’s training, disciplinary affiliations, or nationality for the rejection of his theory, but these arguments lack credibility. Wegener’s contributions to meteorology and geophysics were widely recognized; his death in 1930 prompted a full-page obituary in Nature, which recounted his pioneering contributions to meteorology and mourned his passing as “a great loss to geophysical science.” Being a disciplinary outsider can be an advantage — it probably was for Arthur Holmes when he first embarked on the radiometric time scale. To be sure, there were nation alistic tensions in international science in the early 1920s— German earth scientists complained bitterly over their exclusion from international geodetic and geophysical commissions— but by the late 1920s the theory of continental drift was associated as much with Joly and Holmes as it was with Wegener.
Naomi Oreskes
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780195117325
- eISBN:
- 9780197561188
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780195117325.003.0018
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Geology and the Lithosphere
Some historians have concluded that plate tectonics caused a change in the standards of the geological community, but the shift in standards of the ...
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Some historians have concluded that plate tectonics caused a change in the standards of the geological community, but the shift in standards of the American scientific community was not so much the result of the development of plate tectonics as it was a larger trend that helped to cause it. Geologists consciously chose to move their discipline away from observational field studies and an inductive epistemic stance toward instrumental and laboratory measurements and a more deductive stance. This shift helps to explain why geologists felt compelled to attend to the demands of geodesists even at the expense of their own data: it was the geodesists’ data, rather than their own, that seemed to be in the vanguard of their science. Geologists at the start of the twentieth century had high hopes for their discipline, and they were not disappointed. The Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory became one of the world’s leading locales for laboratory investigations of geological processes, and work done there inspired scientists at other American institutions. At Harvard, for example, Reginald Daly joined forces with Percy Bridgman to raise funds for a high pressure laboratory to determine the physical properties of rocks under conditions prevailing deep within the earth. The application of physics and chemistry to the earth was also advanced at the Carnegie’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, where scientists pursued geomagnetism, isotopic dating, and explosion seismology.’ By mid-century, the origins of igneous and metamorphic rocks had been explained, the age of the earth accurately determined, the behavior of rocks under pressure elucidated, and the nature of isostatic compensation resolved, largely through the application of instrumental and laboratory methods. Similar advances occurred in geophysics and oceanography. The work that Bowie and Field instigated in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, and that scientists at places like Wood’s Hole and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography greatly furthered, had grown by the 1950s into a fully fledged science of marine geophysics and oceanography with abundant financial and logistical backing. This work —in gravity, magnetics, bathymetry, acoustics, seismology— relied on instrumentation, much of it borrowed from physics.
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Some historians have concluded that plate tectonics caused a change in the standards of the geological community, but the shift in standards of the American scientific community was not so much the result of the development of plate tectonics as it was a larger trend that helped to cause it. Geologists consciously chose to move their discipline away from observational field studies and an inductive epistemic stance toward instrumental and laboratory measurements and a more deductive stance. This shift helps to explain why geologists felt compelled to attend to the demands of geodesists even at the expense of their own data: it was the geodesists’ data, rather than their own, that seemed to be in the vanguard of their science. Geologists at the start of the twentieth century had high hopes for their discipline, and they were not disappointed. The Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory became one of the world’s leading locales for laboratory investigations of geological processes, and work done there inspired scientists at other American institutions. At Harvard, for example, Reginald Daly joined forces with Percy Bridgman to raise funds for a high pressure laboratory to determine the physical properties of rocks under conditions prevailing deep within the earth. The application of physics and chemistry to the earth was also advanced at the Carnegie’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, where scientists pursued geomagnetism, isotopic dating, and explosion seismology.’ By mid-century, the origins of igneous and metamorphic rocks had been explained, the age of the earth accurately determined, the behavior of rocks under pressure elucidated, and the nature of isostatic compensation resolved, largely through the application of instrumental and laboratory methods. Similar advances occurred in geophysics and oceanography. The work that Bowie and Field instigated in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, and that scientists at places like Wood’s Hole and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography greatly furthered, had grown by the 1950s into a fully fledged science of marine geophysics and oceanography with abundant financial and logistical backing. This work —in gravity, magnetics, bathymetry, acoustics, seismology— relied on instrumentation, much of it borrowed from physics.
Seth Lobis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780300192032
- eISBN:
- 9780300210415
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300192032.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter focuses on David Hume’s critique of a sympathetic worldview, as represented by Shaftesbury and by the Peripatetic philosophers, as well as on Hume’s elevation of human sympathy as a ...
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This chapter focuses on David Hume’s critique of a sympathetic worldview, as represented by Shaftesbury and by the Peripatetic philosophers, as well as on Hume’s elevation of human sympathy as a fundamental organizing principle of society. The two worked in tandem, the chapter argues, to establish the order of things on the level of the moral and the social. For Hume, universal sympathy was not an ontological fact but a psychological fiction. The whole was unavailable to the mind except though the unscientific processes of induction and imagination. Hume affirmed and reinforced Shaftesbury’s claim for the power of sympathy in society, but he rejected the universalist aspiration of Shaftesbury’s system. In making it the cornerstone of a rigorous moral science, Hume effectively disenchanted sympathy. The chapter traces the progress of this rationalizing trend in the philosophy of Adam Smith. In spite of the development of a modern science of sympathy, however, its long-standing association with magic and mystery did not disappear. The chapter concludes with a reading of Samuel Jackson Pratt’s late eighteenth-century poem Sympathy, which reveals a longing for magical presence in the world outside the mind.Less
This chapter focuses on David Hume’s critique of a sympathetic worldview, as represented by Shaftesbury and by the Peripatetic philosophers, as well as on Hume’s elevation of human sympathy as a fundamental organizing principle of society. The two worked in tandem, the chapter argues, to establish the order of things on the level of the moral and the social. For Hume, universal sympathy was not an ontological fact but a psychological fiction. The whole was unavailable to the mind except though the unscientific processes of induction and imagination. Hume affirmed and reinforced Shaftesbury’s claim for the power of sympathy in society, but he rejected the universalist aspiration of Shaftesbury’s system. In making it the cornerstone of a rigorous moral science, Hume effectively disenchanted sympathy. The chapter traces the progress of this rationalizing trend in the philosophy of Adam Smith. In spite of the development of a modern science of sympathy, however, its long-standing association with magic and mystery did not disappear. The chapter concludes with a reading of Samuel Jackson Pratt’s late eighteenth-century poem Sympathy, which reveals a longing for magical presence in the world outside the mind.
Kjetil Anders Hatlebrekke
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780748691838
- eISBN:
- 9781474465304
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748691838.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, Security Studies
The understanding and acknowledgement of the problem of induction and its negative force on discourse failure bring intelligence studies towards a new theory of intelligence. The understanding of ...
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The understanding and acknowledgement of the problem of induction and its negative force on discourse failure bring intelligence studies towards a new theory of intelligence. The understanding of discourse failure opens a window to intelligence failure as a circular problem that intensifies itself by the human tendency to displace and redirect new knowledge that threatens orthodoxies, political assumptions and a uniform belief in nature. The result is that threats appearing in new variations will not easily be acknowledged or accepted, since they exist outside the normative threat paradigms and outside the existing language available to communicate threats that exist outside the possibilities of induction. The acknowledgement of this phenomenon discloses the problems that arise because intelligence has lacked a proper intelligence theory. It illustrates that if intelligence institutions want to reduce the damaging effect of the problem of induction and discourse fail- ure, and produce qualitative intelligence, they must probe beyond the limits of induction. A deep acknowledgement of the discourse failure theory therefore explains the reciprocal nature of intelli- gence, as well as capturing and identifying the circular dynamic between threats, threat perception and intelligence failure. This chapter examines how this phenomenon shapes intelligence analysis.Less
The understanding and acknowledgement of the problem of induction and its negative force on discourse failure bring intelligence studies towards a new theory of intelligence. The understanding of discourse failure opens a window to intelligence failure as a circular problem that intensifies itself by the human tendency to displace and redirect new knowledge that threatens orthodoxies, political assumptions and a uniform belief in nature. The result is that threats appearing in new variations will not easily be acknowledged or accepted, since they exist outside the normative threat paradigms and outside the existing language available to communicate threats that exist outside the possibilities of induction. The acknowledgement of this phenomenon discloses the problems that arise because intelligence has lacked a proper intelligence theory. It illustrates that if intelligence institutions want to reduce the damaging effect of the problem of induction and discourse fail- ure, and produce qualitative intelligence, they must probe beyond the limits of induction. A deep acknowledgement of the discourse failure theory therefore explains the reciprocal nature of intelli- gence, as well as capturing and identifying the circular dynamic between threats, threat perception and intelligence failure. This chapter examines how this phenomenon shapes intelligence analysis.
John Kaag
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823254934
- eISBN:
- 9780823261031
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823254934.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This chapter focuses the relationship between Peircean abduction and the concepts of the imagination and genius in German idealism. It asks the following questions: What is abduction? Can abduction ...
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This chapter focuses the relationship between Peircean abduction and the concepts of the imagination and genius in German idealism. It asks the following questions: What is abduction? Can abduction be formalized? How has abduction been described in the secondary literature? In light of this formalization and these more recent descriptions, what standards might be used to judge the verity and value of particular abductive processes? Most importantly for the purposes of the current project, to what extent does abductive logic coincide with the process of the imagination as described by Kant and Schiller? This last question is addressed in detail in the next chapter on musement and genius. But all these considerations shed light on Peirce's corpus and more generally on the nature of human cognition. In this respect, Jaakko Hintikka suggests that the questions concerning abduction stand as “the fundamental problem of contemporary epistemology.”Less
This chapter focuses the relationship between Peircean abduction and the concepts of the imagination and genius in German idealism. It asks the following questions: What is abduction? Can abduction be formalized? How has abduction been described in the secondary literature? In light of this formalization and these more recent descriptions, what standards might be used to judge the verity and value of particular abductive processes? Most importantly for the purposes of the current project, to what extent does abductive logic coincide with the process of the imagination as described by Kant and Schiller? This last question is addressed in detail in the next chapter on musement and genius. But all these considerations shed light on Peirce's corpus and more generally on the nature of human cognition. In this respect, Jaakko Hintikka suggests that the questions concerning abduction stand as “the fundamental problem of contemporary epistemology.”
Christopher I. Beckwith
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691176321
- eISBN:
- 9781400866328
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691176321.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Ancient History / Archaeology
The argument known in Antiquity as the Problem of the Criterion was introduced to Western thought by Pyrrho of Elis, who learned it in Central Asia and India from Early Buddhism. The problem ...
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The argument known in Antiquity as the Problem of the Criterion was introduced to Western thought by Pyrrho of Elis, who learned it in Central Asia and India from Early Buddhism. The problem revolutionized ancient European thought, such that from Pyrrho's time onward ancient Graeco-Roman philosophy was focused on the epistemological question, “Can we really know anything?” With the ascendancy of Christianity and its Aristotelian and Neoplatonic apologetics, the problem was sidelined and practically forgotten during the Middle Ages. When Pyrrhonism was reintroduced to Western Europe in the late Renaissance, the problem once again revolutionized Western thought and shifted the central focus of philosophy to epistemology. Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) is responsible for what may be called the problem's modern incarnation, known today as the “Problem of Induction.” This chapter analyzes the issues fundamental to understanding not only Hume but also Pyrrho, and in turn the Buddha.Less
The argument known in Antiquity as the Problem of the Criterion was introduced to Western thought by Pyrrho of Elis, who learned it in Central Asia and India from Early Buddhism. The problem revolutionized ancient European thought, such that from Pyrrho's time onward ancient Graeco-Roman philosophy was focused on the epistemological question, “Can we really know anything?” With the ascendancy of Christianity and its Aristotelian and Neoplatonic apologetics, the problem was sidelined and practically forgotten during the Middle Ages. When Pyrrhonism was reintroduced to Western Europe in the late Renaissance, the problem once again revolutionized Western thought and shifted the central focus of philosophy to epistemology. Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) is responsible for what may be called the problem's modern incarnation, known today as the “Problem of Induction.” This chapter analyzes the issues fundamental to understanding not only Hume but also Pyrrho, and in turn the Buddha.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804760799
- eISBN:
- 9780804771016
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804760799.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
In the late 1960s, a series of events set the stage for the unrest that would later erupt at Stanford University. It began on February 20, 1967, three days before David Harris resigned as president ...
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In the late 1960s, a series of events set the stage for the unrest that would later erupt at Stanford University. It began on February 20, 1967, three days before David Harris resigned as president of the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU). U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey came to campus to hold private talks with members of the Food Research Institute and to deliver a speech to the Memorial Auditorium. The crowd made noise during Humphrey's speech, but the real trouble arose when the vice president departed. Chaos ensued when an angry crowd pounded on his car. The “violence” was exaggerated, but it left an impression to the public that there had been a near-riot at Stanford, and that the personal safety of Humphrey had been compromised. The incident drew fierce reactions. Protests erupted in different parts of the country, including the Pentagon in Washington and the Oakland Induction Center in the Bay Area.Less
In the late 1960s, a series of events set the stage for the unrest that would later erupt at Stanford University. It began on February 20, 1967, three days before David Harris resigned as president of the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU). U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey came to campus to hold private talks with members of the Food Research Institute and to deliver a speech to the Memorial Auditorium. The crowd made noise during Humphrey's speech, but the real trouble arose when the vice president departed. Chaos ensued when an angry crowd pounded on his car. The “violence” was exaggerated, but it left an impression to the public that there had been a near-riot at Stanford, and that the personal safety of Humphrey had been compromised. The incident drew fierce reactions. Protests erupted in different parts of the country, including the Pentagon in Washington and the Oakland Induction Center in the Bay Area.
Vered Maimon
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694716
- eISBN:
- 9781452953526
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694716.003.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Photography
This chapter thus focuses on Talbot’s first 1839 discovery account, “Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing.” It argues that by evoking the inductive method Talbot didn’t assign a privileged ...
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This chapter thus focuses on Talbot’s first 1839 discovery account, “Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing.” It argues that by evoking the inductive method Talbot didn’t assign a privileged epistemological status to photography because during this time the validity of induction as a scientific method was challenged. Talbot conceptualized photography as a copying method that is based on theories of industrial labor and on deskilling.Less
This chapter thus focuses on Talbot’s first 1839 discovery account, “Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing.” It argues that by evoking the inductive method Talbot didn’t assign a privileged epistemological status to photography because during this time the validity of induction as a scientific method was challenged. Talbot conceptualized photography as a copying method that is based on theories of industrial labor and on deskilling.
J. Robert G. Williams
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- February 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198850205
- eISBN:
- 9780191884672
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198850205.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter is one of three that draws out the consequences of Radical Interpretation for how concepts represent the world. A claim associated with David Lewis is that metaphysically fundamental ...
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This chapter is one of three that draws out the consequences of Radical Interpretation for how concepts represent the world. A claim associated with David Lewis is that metaphysically fundamental properties are ‘reference magnets’—that if usage is equipoised between two candidate referents, the one that is ‘closer to the metaphysical fundamentals’ is the one that gets to be the referent. This chapter examines how such a thesis might arise as a prediction of Radical Interpretation. It looks to epistemology of inference to the best explanation to make a connection between concepts used in explanations and naturalness. The connection to concepts used in induction is discussed.Less
This chapter is one of three that draws out the consequences of Radical Interpretation for how concepts represent the world. A claim associated with David Lewis is that metaphysically fundamental properties are ‘reference magnets’—that if usage is equipoised between two candidate referents, the one that is ‘closer to the metaphysical fundamentals’ is the one that gets to be the referent. This chapter examines how such a thesis might arise as a prediction of Radical Interpretation. It looks to epistemology of inference to the best explanation to make a connection between concepts used in explanations and naturalness. The connection to concepts used in induction is discussed.
