Bibliography of Structuralism III

In two occasions a Bibliography of Structuralism has been published in Erkenntnis (1989, 1994). Since then a lot of water has flowed under the bridge and the structuralist program has shown a continuous development. The aim of the present bibliography is to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the publication of An Architectonic for Science –structuralism’s main reference work– and of its recent translation into Spanish by updating the previous bibliographies with titles which have appeared since 1994 as well as before that year but which are not included in them. As in the former deliveries, this bibliography only covers books and articles that are concerned directly with the structuralist approach in the philosophy of science. We would like to thank the many colleagues who have helped us in collecting all the information. Notwithstanding we apologize in advance for the possible entries that we missed to include in this third Bibliography of Structuralism

Belief Revision in Science: Informational Economy and Paraconsistency

In the present paper, our objective is to examine the application of belief revision models to scientific rationality. We begin by considering the standard model AGM, and along the way a number of problems surface that make it seem inadequate for this specific application. After considering three different heuristics of informational economy that seem fit for science, we consider some possible adaptations for it and argue informally that, overall, some paraconsistent models seem to better satisfy these principles, following Testa (2015). These models have been worked out in formal detail by Testa, Cogniglio, & Ribeiro (2015, 2017)

AGM 25 years: twenty-five years of research in belief change

The 1985 paper by Carlos Alchourrón (1931–1996), Peter Gärdenfors, and David Makinson (AGM), “On the Logic of Theory Change: Partial Meet Contraction and Revision Functions” was the starting-point of a large and rapidly growing literature that employs formal models in the investigation of changes in belief states and databases. In this review, the first twenty five years of this development are summarized. The topics covered include equivalent characterizations of AGM operations, extended representations of the belief states, change operators not included in the original framework, iterated change, applications of the model, its connections with other formal frameworks, computatibility of AGM operations, and criticism of the model.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Tipping positive change

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Royal Society via the DOI in this recordTipping points exist in social, ecological and climate systems and those systems are increasingly causally intertwined in the Anthropocene. Climate change and biosphere degradation have advanced to the point where we are already triggering damaging environmental tipping points, and to avoid worse ones ahead will require finding and triggering positive tipping points towards sustainability in coupled social, ecological and technological systems. To help with that I outline how tipping points can occur in continuous dynamical systems and in networks, the causal interactions that can occur between tipping events across different types and scales of system – including the conditions required to trigger tipping cascades, the potential for early warning signals of tipping points, and how they could inform deliberate tipping of positive change. In particular, the same methods that can provide early warning of damaging environmental tipping points can be used to detect when a socio-technical or socio-ecological system is most sensitive to being deliberately tipped in a desirable direction. I provide some example targets for such deliberate tipping of positive change.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)Leverhulme Trus

Horacio Arló-Costa (1956-2011)

Horacio Arló-Costa fue sin dudas uno de los principales lógicos que ha producido nuestra Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Fue, además, una de las principales fuerzas detrás de la consolidación, a nivel mundial, del ámbito de reflexión conocido con el nombre de “epistemología formal”, una disciplina nueva constituida en la intersección de la lógica epistémica, la teoría de la decisión, la inferencia ampliativa y la teoría del conocimiento tradicional

From Features via Frames to Spaces: Modeling Scientific Conceptual Change Without Incommensurability or Aprioricity

The (dynamic) frame model, originating in artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology, has recently been applied to change-phenomena traditionally studied within history and philosophy of science. Its application purpose is to account for episodes of conceptual dynamics in the empirical sciences (allegedly) suggestive of incommensurability as evidenced by “ruptures” in the symbolic forms of historically successive empirical theories with similar classes of applications. This article reviews the frame model and traces its development from the feature list model. Drawing on extant literature, examples of frame-reconstructed taxonomic change are presented. This occurs for purposes of comparison with an alternative tool, conceptual spaces. The main claim is that conceptual spaces save the merits of the frame model and provide a powerful model for conceptual change in scientific knowledge, since distinctions arising in measurement theory are native to the model. It is suggested how incommensurability as incomparability of theoretical frameworks might be avoided (thus coming on par with a key-result of applying frames). Moreover, as non(inter-)translatability of worldviews, it need not to be treated as a genuine problem of conceptual representation. The status of laws vis à vis their dimensional bases as well as diachronic similarity measures are (inconclusively) discussed

Conditioning and Interpretation Shifts

This paper develops a probabilistic model of belief change under interpretation shifts, in the context of a problem case from dynamic epistemic logic. Van Benthem [4] has shown that a particular kind of belief change, typical for dynamic epistemic logic, cannot be modelled by standard Bayesian conditioning. I argue that the problems described by van Benthem come about because the belief change alters the semantics in which the change is supposed to be modelled: the new information induces a shift in the interpretation of the sentences. In this paper I show that interpretation shifts can be modeled in terms of updating by conditioning. The model derives from the knowledge structures developed by Fagin et al [8], and hinges on a distinction between the propositional and informational content of sentences. Finally, I show that Dempster-Shafer theory provides the appropriate probability kinematics for the model

Institutional tipping points in organizational climate change adaptation processes

Despite increasing awareness of the urgency to respond to climate change through adaptation, progress with climate change adaptation differs considerably across social contexts, even within seemingly uniform institutional environments. Only a part of these differences in engaging in adaptation can be explained by differentiated exposure or sensitivity to climate change hazards. Institutions, and institutional change, play important roles in enabling or constraining adaptation at the social group scale. This paper borrows the concept of tipping points from the natural sciences (Lenton et al. 2008; Lenton 2013) and applies it to social processes of climate change adaptation by focusing on processes of institutional change towards and beyond 'institutional' tipping points. Different stages of institutional change, where social groups switch from one dominant attractor regime to another, are discussed and illustrated. Empirical research conducted in two organizations in the local government and primary health care sector in Australia are used as examples for how institutional adaptation occurs and how institutional tipping points can be identified. Reflecting on these examples, the paper reviews the conceptual value-add of the institutional tipping points concept, while also discussing its epistemological and methodological limitations

The ‘Alice in Wonderland’ mechanics of the rejection of (climate) science:simulating coherence by conspiracism

Science strives for coherence. For example, the findings from climate science form a highly coherent body of knowledge that is supported by many independent lines of evidence: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human economic activities are causing the global climate to warm and unless GHG emissions are drastically reduced in the near future, the risks from climate change will continue to grow and major adverse consequences will become unavoidable. People who oppose this scientific body of knowledge because the implications of cutting GHG emissions—such as regulation or increased taxation—threaten their worldview or livelihood cannot provide an alternative view that is coherent by the standards of conventional scientific thinking. Instead, we suggest that people who reject the fact that the Earth’s climate is changing due to greenhouse gas emissions (or any other body of well-established scientific knowledge) oppose whatever inconvenient finding they are confronting in piece-meal fashion, rather than systematically, and without considering the implications of this rejection to the rest of the relevant scientific theory and findings. Hence, claims that the globe “is cooling” can coexist with claims that the “observed warming is natural” and that “the human influence does not matter because warming is good for us.” Coherence between these mutually contradictory opinions can only be achieved at a highly abstract level, namely that “something must be wrong” with the scientific evidence in order to justify a political position against climate change mitigation. This high-level coherence accompanied by contradictory subordinate propositions is a known attribute of conspiracist ideation, and conspiracism may be implicated when people reject well-established scientific propositions