An Examination of Some Aspects of Howard Stein's Work

Some understand Stein’s “Yes, but…” as an entry in the realism—instrumentalism debate (RID) itself, albeit one dissatisfied with then-extant positions. In this paper, however, I argue the opposite: Stein’s conception of science and his approach to its history and philosophy actually preclude the RID. First, I characterize Stein as persistently attending to his own historical and philosophical methods. I then describe his conception of science as both a dialectic and an enterprise, and I draw from this conception several conclusions about the relations between science and its history and philosophy. Finally, I provide a reading of “Yes, but…” that follows from Stein’s conception of science. On this reading, the RID is either irrelevant to or wrong of science and, moreover, distracts from a legitimate inquiry. I conclude by interpreting Stein’s remark that there is ``no difference that makes a difference’’ between a cogent and enlightened realism and a sophisticated instrumentalism

Hilbert-Style Axiomatic Completion: The (Not So) Hidden Contextuality of von Neumann's "No Hidden Variables" Theorem

In this paper I provide a detailed history of von Neumann’s “No Hidden Variables” theorem, and I argue it is a demonstration that his axiomatization mathematically captures a salient feature of the statistical interpretation (namely, that hidden variables are incompatible). I show that this reading of von Neumann’s theorem is obvious once one recalls several contextual factors of his work. First, his axiomatization was what I call a Hilbert-style axiomatic completion; indeed, it developed from work initiated by Hilbert (and Nordheim). Second, it was responsive to specific mathematical and theoretical problems faced by Dirac and Jordan’s statistical transformation theory (then called ‘quantum mechanics’). Third, the axiomatization was essentially completed already in his 1927 papers, at least concerning the status of hidden variables, and this would have been obvious to the audience for those papers. Thus, the theorem’s statement and proof were only necessary when the material was presented for a general mathematical audience, i.e., in his 1932 Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics . With this reading in mind, his claim that quantum mechanics was in “compelling logical contradiction with causality” appears as a straightforward consequence of his theorem. I conclude by reassessing the theorem’s broader historical and scientific significance

Why Should Identity Be Harmonious?

Logical inferentialists have expected identity to be susceptible of harmonious introduction and elimination rules in natural deduction. While Read and Klev have proposed rules they argue are harmonious, Griffiths and Ahmed have criticized these rules as insufficient for harmony. These critics moreover suggest that no harmonious rules are forthcoming. I argue that these critics are correct: the logical inferentialist should abandon hope for harmonious rules for identity. The paper analyzes the three major uses of identity in presumed-logical languages: variable coordination, definitional substitution, and co-reference. We show that identity qua variable coordination is not logical by providing a harmonious natural-deduction system that captures this use through the quantifiers. We then argue that identity qua definitional substitution or co-reference faces a dilemma: either its rules are harmonious but they obscure its actual use in inference, or its rules are not harmonious but they make its actual use in inference plain. We conclude that the inferentialist may have harmonious rules for identity only by disrespecting its inferential use

An Examination of Some Aspects of Howard Stein's Work

Some understand Stein’s “Yes, but…” as an entry in the realism—instrumentalism debate (RID) itself, albeit one dissatisfied with then-extant positions. In this paper, however, I argue the opposite: Stein’s conception of science and his approach to its history and philosophy actually preclude the RID. First, I characterize Stein as persistently attending to his own historical and philosophical methods. I then describe his conception of science as both a dialectic and an enterprise, and I draw from this conception several conclusions about the relations between science and its history and philosophy. Finally, I provide a reading of “Yes, but…” that follows from Stein’s conception of science. On this reading, the RID is either irrelevant to or wrong of science and, moreover, distracts from a legitimate inquiry. I conclude by interpreting Stein’s remark that there is ``no difference that makes a difference’’ between a cogent and enlightened realism and a sophisticated instrumentalism

Physical soil development of two created wetlands at the Olentangy River Wetland Research Park

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Net primary productivity of macrophyte communities in the experimental marshes after eleven growing seasons

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