…partially independent of both theories and the world. This autonomy allows for a unified account of their role as instruments that allow for exploration of both theories and the world….
Knowledge of Arithmetic
…prioricity) yet accommodates naturalistic concerns by remaining funda- mentally empiricist. I argue that the central claims which would allow us to develop such an epistemology are (i) that arithmetical truths…
On three theories of implicature: default theory, relevance and minimalism
…literature, the precise account he offered of implicature recovery has been questioned and alternative accounts have emerged. In this paper, I examine three such alternative accounts. My main aim is…
A Powerful Theory of Causation
…and causal necessitation. The most conspicuous cases of causation are those where powers accumulate and pass a requisite threshold for an effect to occur. We develop a model for representing…
Necessary Connections and the Problem of Induction
Summary: In this paper Beebee argues that the problem of induction, which she describes as a genuine sceptical problem, is the same for Humeans than for Necessitarians. Neither scientific essentialists…
The Dappled World: A study of the Boundaries of Science
Publisher’s Note: It is often supposed that the spectacular successes of our modern mathematical sciences support a lofty vision of a world completely ordered by one single elegant theory. In this…
Reasoning without the principle of sufficient reason
Abstract: According to Principles of Sufficient Reason, every truth (in some relevant group) has an explanation. One of the most popular defenses of Principles of Sufficient Reason has been the presupposition…
Models, fiction and fictional models
Summary: The use of models to scientifically represent and study reality is widely recognized with good reasons as indispensable for the practice of science. Because models, unlikely pure verbal representation,…
The Structure of scientific inference
Publisher’s Note: A danger of a heavily formalist approach to the structure of science is that it may lose sight of the concrete actualities on which scientific inference is exercised….
Models in Physics
Summary: In this article Hesse defends the idea that scientific theories are hypothetico-deductive in form. She examines this hypothetico-deductive method by considering some examples from nineteenth-century mathematical physics. By means…