scholarly journals Subatomic Particles, Epistemic Stances, and Kantian Antinomies

Author(s):  
Tobias Henschen

AbstractIn Scientific Ontology, Chakravartty diagnoses a “dramatic conflict” between empiricism and metaphysics and aims to overcome that conflict by opting for a modern-day variant of Pyrrhonism, i.e. by appreciating the equal strength (isostheneia) of the arguments for and against the empiricist and metaphysical positions, and by achieving tranquility (ataraxia) by suspending judgment or remaining speechless in the face of that isostheneia. In this paper, I want to argue that instead of remaining speechless in the face of the isostheneia of the arguments for and against the empiricist and metaphysical positions, we should adopt a position that remains underrated in Chakravartty’s analysis: a position that amounts to a modern-day variant of the Kantian combination of transcendental idealism and empirical realism, and that like the original Kantian combination, is capable of solving many instances of the dramatic conflict between empiricism and metaphysics and, in particular, a conflict that is the talk of the town in philosophy of science these days—the conflict between ontic-structural realism and Lewisian metaphysics.

Author(s):  
Ronald Hoinski ◽  
Ronald Polansky

David Hoinski and Ronald Polansky’s “The Modern Aristotle: Michael Polanyi’s Search for Truth against Nihilism” shows how the general tendencies of contemporary philosophy of science disclose a return to the Aristotelian emphasis on both the formation of dispositions to know and the role of the mind in theoretical science. Focusing on a comparison of Michael Polanyi and Aristotle, Hoinski and Polansky investigate to what degree Aristotelian thought retains its purchase on reality in the face of the changes wrought by modern science. Polanyi’s approach relies on several Aristotelian assumptions, including the naturalness of the human desire to know, the institutional and personal basis for the accumulation of knowledge, and the endorsement of realism against objectivism. Hoinski and Polansky emphasize the promise of Polanyi’s neo-Aristotelian framework, which argues that science is won through reflection on reality.


Author(s):  
Bruce L. Gordon

There is an argument for the existence of God from the incompleteness of nature that is vaguely present in Plantinga’s recent work. This argument, which rests on the metaphysical implications of quantum physics and the philosophical deficiency of necessitarian conceptions of physical law, deserves to be given a clear formulation. The goal is to demonstrate, via a suitably articulated principle of sufficient reason, that divine action in an occasionalist mode is needed (and hence God’s existence is required) to bring causal closure to nature and render it ontologically functional. The best explanation for quantum phenomena and the most adequate understanding of general providence turns out to rest on an ontic structural realism in physics that is grounded in the immaterialist metaphysics of theistic idealism.


2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-38
Author(s):  
Jasmina Jeknic-Dugic

A quantum mechanical analysis of the decomposability of quantum systems into subsystems provides support for the so-called "attenuated Eliminative Ontic Structural Realism" within Categorical Structuralism studies in physics. Quantum subsystems are recognized as non-individual, relationally defined objects that deflate or relax some standard objections against Eliminative Ontic Structural Realism. Our considerations assume the universally valid quantum theory without tackling interpretational issues.


Author(s):  
Froilan D. Mobo

Today’s climate is unpredictable there are so many natural calamities which took place in our country which is the Philippines, two weeks ago because of the sudden changes of the weather in the Province of Zambales, the Philippines a strong tornado hits the town of Castillejos, Zambales which some of the electrical wirings were severely damaged because of the sudden change of the climate. The researcher is thinking of implementing a home gardening to each Municipality in our Province. By doing this it can help lessen the pollution in the air and it will help heal our Ozone Layer faster. The empirical evidence for the benefits of gardening and the advocate of the development and testing of socio-ecological models of community resilience through the impact of community gardens, especially in urban areas is highly effective(Okvat & Zautra, 2011). As lessening the air pollution will have a greater impact on our Ozone Layer no to deplete but it will heal the would faster. The present study revealed that local experiences in the face of climate change adaptation have merits that need special consideration(Anik & Khan, 2012). Also, the Researcher will implement this project in the Municipality of Subic, Zambales.


Author(s):  
Noel Boulting ◽  

Ladyman and Ross’s Every Thing Must Go is a challenging text. In order to ascertain its significance, attention will be focused on their idea of Scale Relative Ontology. To do this their conception of Ontic Structural Realism will require elucidation. Its implications for Scale Relative Ontology will be explored before considering the way Scale Relative Ontology can be cast through three possible dimensions: the cosmological, the ordinary middle-sized, and scientific perspectives. In exploring the latter perspective, and applying insights derived from Peirce’s philosophy, their defence of Scientism will then be considered. In this way three different senses can be distinguished through which this doctrine can be presented, before examining what kind of Scientism they advocate and thereby its adequacy.


Author(s):  
Alison Assiter

This chapter outlines a strong version of ‘realism’ against what Meillassoux labels ‘correlationism’. It suggests, however, that the critiques made by certain realists of the Kantian noumenal can be answered. It begins by defending Kantian ‘empirical realism’ against the critiques of some realists. Then it moves on to claim that Kant’s arguments for transcendental idealism are stronger than those for Bhaskar’s transcendental realism. The chapter suggests, more controversially, that if one takes seriously Kant’s notion of ‘spontaneous causation’, it is possible to offer a Kantian defence of the ‘grounding’ of the phenomenal in the noumenal. Finally, it argues that Kant offers a stronger form of realism than is generally supposed by his critics.


Author(s):  
Cheryl Colopy

I first heard of Bel Prasad Shrestha five years before I met him. An article in the Nepali Times lauded his efforts to establish a water system in the town of Dhulikhel while he was its mayor. I clipped it and set it aside. Fifteen miles from Kathmandu was a municipal utility that put Kathmandu’s to shame. I wanted to know more. Perhaps I saved Bel Prasad for last, expecting the visit to Dhulikhel to be a pleasant excursion—a hopeful encounter that would show me that the break down of urban management I saw every day in Kathmandu was not an inevitable part of development in Nepal. After all those discouraging discussions about Melamchi and about Kathmandu sewage and water supply problems, perhaps I was going to meet a Newar who had a gift for water like his ancient forebears. I went to Dhulikhel the day before May Day, 2010, when Nepal’s Maoists were planning to outdo their usual May Day celebrations with protests all over the city. They were massing their cadres in Kathmandu, ostensibly to pressure the prime minister of another party to resign. On a Friday morning I set out with my friend Ram, a Kathmandu taxi driver who was always available when I needed to venture out on a longer excursion. The shocks on his little white Maruti Suzuki were shot, as they were on most taxis in Kathmandu, but Ram was a good driver who knew all the roads and backroads. Aside from worries about being able to return to the city in the face of demonstrations and roadblocks—or perhaps the complete countrywide shutdown that the Maoists were threatening—Dhulikhel was a green and quiet escape, a fine place to wait out urban riots if any were to materialize. And I found a charming host in Bel Prasad, a unique and now elderly gentleman who had straddled the wide gulf between the rural Nepal of his childhood and the world he had seen in visits to Europe, America, and Japan.


1893 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 338-355
Author(s):  
W. J. Woodhouse

A singularly small contribution has been made by Aetolia to the vast and steadily growing mass of our epigraphical treasures. This seems to be due to two reasons,—a real dearth of inscriptions traceable in part to the character of the Aetolians themselves, and, secondly, the comparative neglect that Aetolia has suffered at the hands of travellers and archaeologists. The inscriptions given here are the results of a detailed exploration extending over part of each of the two years 1892 and 1893.A large proportion, and those the most interesting of the inscriptions found, come from Naupaktos, or its immediate neighbourhood. This valuable maritime station was, as is well known, put by Athens into the possession of the exiled Messenians and with the downfall of her Empire it passed into the hands of the Achaean allies of Sparta: they seem to have kept it in spite of all the efforts of the Aetolians and it was not until 338 B.C. that its natural owners finally regained it by the gift of Philip of Macedon. From that time onwards Naupaktos played an important part in the history of the League. Pausanias visited the town and among its antiquities he mentions the ruins of a temple of Asklepios of some reputation. The site of this temple has been identified from the inscriptions cut in the face of a rock forming the back of a terrace near the springs called Kephalóvrysis, a few minutes' walk to the east of the town. The few fragments which are all that can now be deciphered of the numerous inscriptions which once covered the rock are given by R. Weil in his paper ‘Das Asklepieion von Naupaktos,’ Mitth. des deutsch. Inst. vol. iv. p. 22.


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