Thomas S. Kuhn is one of the leading philosophers and historians of science that investigated in-depth cases of simultaneous discoveries in science. Although his analysis of the discovery of energy conservation and ox...Thomas S. Kuhn is one of the leading philosophers and historians of science that investigated in-depth cases of simultaneous discoveries in science. Although his analysis of the discovery of energy conservation and oxygen did not focus sharply on the priority disputes involved, it is within such contexts that controversy about which scientist was the first to make a discovery takes place. Evidently, Kuhn＇s recourse to historical case studies is a clear departure from the standpoint of traditional mainstream philosophies of science （namely, logical positivism and falsificationism）, which cavalierly dismissed such concerns as irrelevant to philosophical reconstructions of science Challenges to orthodox logistic approaches were prompted by the realisation that the two dominant traditions mentioned above, in their excessive preoccupation with ＂the logical skeleton of science＂, have lost contact with real science. As a contribution to what Michael Polanyi referred to as post-critical philosophy, the present study reanalyses the tension-generating potentials of bipolar values shared by members of scientific communities. It traces the origins of the rebellion against logic-dominated philosophies of science, and identifies different post-positivist approaches that have eme^rged over the years which legitimise broadening the frontiers of the philosophy of science. Consequent upon that, some conflicting values or norms shared by members of scientific communities and how they affect the quest for scientific knowledge are underscored. Using as a case study the acrimonious priority dispute between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz concerning the discovery of calculus, the paper demonstrates that excessive concern for recognition which sometimes leads to protracted priority disputes tends to bring out the worst kind of behaviours towards colleagues even from the greatest scientists. We submit, by way of conclusion, that despite the heroic （almost god-like） reputation of such scientists, they are human and, therefore, subject to the vicissitudes of emotional turbulence just like everyone else.展开更多
In the second half of the last century the problem of categories became less and less prominent in philosophical debates. This twilight of categorial discourse did not go unnoticed, and some authors offered different ...In the second half of the last century the problem of categories became less and less prominent in philosophical debates. This twilight of categorial discourse did not go unnoticed, and some authors offered different solutions for the revival of categorial theorizing in contemporary philosophy＇s repertoire. One of these authors is the American philosopher Stephen Pepper. The purpose of the present discussion is to offer yet another explanation for the decline of categorial theory, and to explore Pepper＇s view and its role in the transformation of categorial discourse. The main thesis which I will argue for is that traditional categories did not disappear altogether, but they have been replaced, gradually, by key empirical concepts from natural science. Even if such concepts do not satisfy the traditional requirements categories in shaping our for a categorial scheme, they are, nonetheless, fulfilling the same role as traditional worldviews.展开更多
The essay has two main purposes.The first consists of discussing some literary and philosophical thoughts on the epistemological value of science by one of the most famous and celebrated poets in Italian literature,Gi...The essay has two main purposes.The first consists of discussing some literary and philosophical thoughts on the epistemological value of science by one of the most famous and celebrated poets in Italian literature,Giacomo Leopardi.The poet firmly believes in the cognitive power of science,capable of revealing false beliefs with the light of reason.However,in his mature reflections,what will radically change will not be the value of scientific activity itself,always admirably accepted,but rather its true salvific force.Leopardi was not a scientist,but he used the scientific culture of his time to critically address the great existential themes of man concerning nature and the universe.He had amply demonstrated a scientific culture since his youthful'History of Astronomy',which would reappear in many of his other literary works.His deep and meditative reflections on the nature of finite and infinite space and time are a clear and fruitful testimony to this.However,Giacomo writes icastically,reason alone is not enough;it needs imagination.The second concerns a first reconstruction of the influence that the philosophy of Enlightenment had on Leopardi’s thought especially in relation to these topics:atheism,rejection of providentialism and anthropocentrism,the conception of nature,the question of the relationship between human and animal intelligence,the rejection of metaphysics,the importance of scientific knowledge.展开更多
During the past 10 years, the Christian Science movement has discarded large expensive public relations efforts to concentrate on the writings of the founder, Mary Baker Eddy （1821-1910） and the central role of heal...During the past 10 years, the Christian Science movement has discarded large expensive public relations efforts to concentrate on the writings of the founder, Mary Baker Eddy （1821-1910） and the central role of healing. This paper examines this seismic shift, delves into the reasons for the change of strategy, and suggests a renewed interest in the movement＇s history and other forms of outreach to help revive a movement that has been in decline just after World War II. Resources for this study are the monthly Christian Science Journal, resources of the Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston, and the writer＇s own research and publications on the history of Christian Science.展开更多
Often conceived as metaphysical approach, in the XX Century, philosophy is object of a crusade antimetaphysical in the movement of Logical Positivism. I will try to demonstrate that a philosophical perspective is conc...Often conceived as metaphysical approach, in the XX Century, philosophy is object of a crusade antimetaphysical in the movement of Logical Positivism. I will try to demonstrate that a philosophical perspective is conceivable even in the scientific conception of the world elaborated by the neopositivists. I discuss this point of view with attention to the turn represented by pragmatic philosophy of Neurath, which represents a crucial passage for the future of philosophy. In this vision, the science is not conceivable without philosophy, namely without an open and pluralist scientific philosophy. The philosophy--so--is not insufficient too for the perspective of scientific conception of the world.展开更多
The Victorian period experienced, among many other paradoxes, an ongoing tension between science and spirituality. Bearing the legacy of the ＂Enlightenment Rationalism＂ and the Cartesian division between ＂matter＂ ...The Victorian period experienced, among many other paradoxes, an ongoing tension between science and spirituality. Bearing the legacy of the ＂Enlightenment Rationalism＂ and the Cartesian division between ＂matter＂ and ＂mind＂ since the eighteenth century, the Victorian minds had to deal with a contemporary world rapidly unfolding new discoveries in geology, astronomy, biology, and medical sciences. However, these could not completely erase the spiritual belief from the human mind. Rather they sought to reshape their codes in terms of ＂alternative sciences＂ like occultism and metaphysical psychiatry （pre-Freudian）. This paper seeks to explore the characterisation of the ＂metaphysical＂ physician in two novels by Wilkie Collins and Marie Corelli, showing how these figures play a crucial role in negotiating the tensions between science and spiritualism.展开更多
With this work, we introduce a novel method for the unsupervised learning of conceptual hierarchies, or concept maps as they are sometimes called, which is aimed specifically for use with literary texts, as such disti...With this work, we introduce a novel method for the unsupervised learning of conceptual hierarchies, or concept maps as they are sometimes called, which is aimed specifically for use with literary texts, as such distinguishing itself from the majority of research literature on the topic which is primarily focused on building ontologies from a vast array of different types of data sources, both structured and unstructured, to support various forms of AI, in particular, the Semantic Web as envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee. We first elaborate on mutually informing disciplines of philosophy and computer science, or more specifically the relationship between metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, computing and AI, followed by a technically in-depth discussion of DEBRA, our dependency tree based concept hierarchy constructor, which as its name alludes to, constructs a conceptual map in the form of a directed graph which illustrates the concepts, their respective relations, and the implied ontological structure of the concepts as encoded in the text, decoded with standard Python NLP libraries such as spaCy and NLTK. With this work we hope to both augment the Knowledge Representation literature with opportunities for intellectual advancement in AI with more intuitive, less analytical, and well-known forms of knowledge representation from the cognitive science community, as well as open up new areas of research between Computer Science and the Humanities with respect to the application of the latest in NLP tools and techniques upon literature of cultural significance, shedding light on existing methods of computation with respect to documents in semantic space that effectively allows for, at the very least, the comparison and evolution of texts through time, using vector space math.展开更多
文摘Thomas S. Kuhn is one of the leading philosophers and historians of science that investigated in-depth cases of simultaneous discoveries in science. Although his analysis of the discovery of energy conservation and oxygen did not focus sharply on the priority disputes involved, it is within such contexts that controversy about which scientist was the first to make a discovery takes place. Evidently, Kuhn＇s recourse to historical case studies is a clear departure from the standpoint of traditional mainstream philosophies of science （namely, logical positivism and falsificationism）, which cavalierly dismissed such concerns as irrelevant to philosophical reconstructions of science Challenges to orthodox logistic approaches were prompted by the realisation that the two dominant traditions mentioned above, in their excessive preoccupation with ＂the logical skeleton of science＂, have lost contact with real science. As a contribution to what Michael Polanyi referred to as post-critical philosophy, the present study reanalyses the tension-generating potentials of bipolar values shared by members of scientific communities. It traces the origins of the rebellion against logic-dominated philosophies of science, and identifies different post-positivist approaches that have eme^rged over the years which legitimise broadening the frontiers of the philosophy of science. Consequent upon that, some conflicting values or norms shared by members of scientific communities and how they affect the quest for scientific knowledge are underscored. Using as a case study the acrimonious priority dispute between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz concerning the discovery of calculus, the paper demonstrates that excessive concern for recognition which sometimes leads to protracted priority disputes tends to bring out the worst kind of behaviours towards colleagues even from the greatest scientists. We submit, by way of conclusion, that despite the heroic （almost god-like） reputation of such scientists, they are human and, therefore, subject to the vicissitudes of emotional turbulence just like everyone else.
文摘In the second half of the last century the problem of categories became less and less prominent in philosophical debates. This twilight of categorial discourse did not go unnoticed, and some authors offered different solutions for the revival of categorial theorizing in contemporary philosophy＇s repertoire. One of these authors is the American philosopher Stephen Pepper. The purpose of the present discussion is to offer yet another explanation for the decline of categorial theory, and to explore Pepper＇s view and its role in the transformation of categorial discourse. The main thesis which I will argue for is that traditional categories did not disappear altogether, but they have been replaced, gradually, by key empirical concepts from natural science. Even if such concepts do not satisfy the traditional requirements categories in shaping our for a categorial scheme, they are, nonetheless, fulfilling the same role as traditional worldviews.
文摘The essay has two main purposes.The first consists of discussing some literary and philosophical thoughts on the epistemological value of science by one of the most famous and celebrated poets in Italian literature,Giacomo Leopardi.The poet firmly believes in the cognitive power of science,capable of revealing false beliefs with the light of reason.However,in his mature reflections,what will radically change will not be the value of scientific activity itself,always admirably accepted,but rather its true salvific force.Leopardi was not a scientist,but he used the scientific culture of his time to critically address the great existential themes of man concerning nature and the universe.He had amply demonstrated a scientific culture since his youthful'History of Astronomy',which would reappear in many of his other literary works.His deep and meditative reflections on the nature of finite and infinite space and time are a clear and fruitful testimony to this.However,Giacomo writes icastically,reason alone is not enough;it needs imagination.The second concerns a first reconstruction of the influence that the philosophy of Enlightenment had on Leopardi’s thought especially in relation to these topics:atheism,rejection of providentialism and anthropocentrism,the conception of nature,the question of the relationship between human and animal intelligence,the rejection of metaphysics,the importance of scientific knowledge.
文摘During the past 10 years, the Christian Science movement has discarded large expensive public relations efforts to concentrate on the writings of the founder, Mary Baker Eddy （1821-1910） and the central role of healing. This paper examines this seismic shift, delves into the reasons for the change of strategy, and suggests a renewed interest in the movement＇s history and other forms of outreach to help revive a movement that has been in decline just after World War II. Resources for this study are the monthly Christian Science Journal, resources of the Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston, and the writer＇s own research and publications on the history of Christian Science.
文摘Often conceived as metaphysical approach, in the XX Century, philosophy is object of a crusade antimetaphysical in the movement of Logical Positivism. I will try to demonstrate that a philosophical perspective is conceivable even in the scientific conception of the world elaborated by the neopositivists. I discuss this point of view with attention to the turn represented by pragmatic philosophy of Neurath, which represents a crucial passage for the future of philosophy. In this vision, the science is not conceivable without philosophy, namely without an open and pluralist scientific philosophy. The philosophy--so--is not insufficient too for the perspective of scientific conception of the world.
文摘The Victorian period experienced, among many other paradoxes, an ongoing tension between science and spirituality. Bearing the legacy of the ＂Enlightenment Rationalism＂ and the Cartesian division between ＂matter＂ and ＂mind＂ since the eighteenth century, the Victorian minds had to deal with a contemporary world rapidly unfolding new discoveries in geology, astronomy, biology, and medical sciences. However, these could not completely erase the spiritual belief from the human mind. Rather they sought to reshape their codes in terms of ＂alternative sciences＂ like occultism and metaphysical psychiatry （pre-Freudian）. This paper seeks to explore the characterisation of the ＂metaphysical＂ physician in two novels by Wilkie Collins and Marie Corelli, showing how these figures play a crucial role in negotiating the tensions between science and spiritualism.
文摘With this work, we introduce a novel method for the unsupervised learning of conceptual hierarchies, or concept maps as they are sometimes called, which is aimed specifically for use with literary texts, as such distinguishing itself from the majority of research literature on the topic which is primarily focused on building ontologies from a vast array of different types of data sources, both structured and unstructured, to support various forms of AI, in particular, the Semantic Web as envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee. We first elaborate on mutually informing disciplines of philosophy and computer science, or more specifically the relationship between metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, computing and AI, followed by a technically in-depth discussion of DEBRA, our dependency tree based concept hierarchy constructor, which as its name alludes to, constructs a conceptual map in the form of a directed graph which illustrates the concepts, their respective relations, and the implied ontological structure of the concepts as encoded in the text, decoded with standard Python NLP libraries such as spaCy and NLTK. With this work we hope to both augment the Knowledge Representation literature with opportunities for intellectual advancement in AI with more intuitive, less analytical, and well-known forms of knowledge representation from the cognitive science community, as well as open up new areas of research between Computer Science and the Humanities with respect to the application of the latest in NLP tools and techniques upon literature of cultural significance, shedding light on existing methods of computation with respect to documents in semantic space that effectively allows for, at the very least, the comparison and evolution of texts through time, using vector space math.
