scholarly journals Laws in Philosophy of Info-Computationalism

Proceedings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Shanshan Fan

What are laws of nature? This issue has always been one of the core issues of philosophy of science. Info-computationalism uses algorithms and information to explain laws of nature, and analyses its nature from the perspective and invariance, which opens up a new path for laws of nature. Therefore, this paper, based on the theory of info-computationalism, compares them to Cartwright’s concept of laws of nature. It is found that we can follow the laws in computers to understand the laws of nature, and regard the laws of nature as human, metaphorical, prescriptive and creative products.

Proceedings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Shanshan Fan

What are laws of nature? This issue has always been one of the core issues of philosophy of science. Info-computationalism uses algorithms and information to explain laws of nature, and analyses its nature from the perspective and invariance, which opens up a new path for laws of nature. Therefore, this paper, based on the theory of info-computationalism, compares them to Cartwright’s concept of laws of nature. It is found that we can follow the laws in computers to understand the laws of nature, and regard the laws of nature as human, metaphorical, prescriptive and creative products.


Author(s):  
Samir Okasha

Philosophy of Biology: A Very Short Introduction outlines the core issues with which contemporary philosophers of biology grapple. Over the last forty years the philosophy of biology has emerged as an important sub-discipline of the philosophy of science. Addressing difficult conceptual issues that arise within the biological sciences, it also encompasses areas where biology has impinged on traditional philosophical questions, such as free-will, essentialism, and nature vs nurture. The book also explores topics such as the logic of Darwinian evolution; the concepts of function and design; the nature of species; and the debate over adaptationism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-74
Author(s):  
Galileu Galilei Medeiros de Souza

Resumo: O artigo é um ensaio sobre como a atividade científica poderia ser influenciada por uma proposta ética voltada para a superação das desigualdades. A questão subjacente a este estudo tematiza a possível contraposição entre a ética, que parece ser inteiramente vinculada à liberdade humana e seus processos de escolha, e a lógica da pesquisa científica, que ainda, pelo menos em visão popular, parece se basear na posse de informações objetivas e na descoberta de leis de regulação da natureza. Será feita uma breve contextualização das aquisições teóricas sobre o sentido da ciência positiva dos últimos séculos, procurando extrair daí as indicações de uma estreita dependência dessa em relação às escolhas humanas, em virtude de sua metodologia dialética.   Palavras-Chave: Ciência positiva. Filosofia da ciência. Dialética. Ética.      Abstract: The article is an essay on how scientific activity could be influenced by an ethics proposal aimed at overcoming inequalities. The question underlying this study discusses the possible contrast between ethics, which seems to be entirely linked to human freedom and choice processes, and the logic of scientific research, which still, at least in a popular view, seems to be based on possession of objective information and discovery of regulatory laws of nature. Will be presented a brief background of theoretical acquisitions on the meaning of positive science of the last centuries, looking to extract the indications of a close dependence of this in relation to human choices, because your dialectic methodology.  Keywords: Positive Science. Philosophy of Science. Dialectic. Ethics. REFERÊNCIASARISTÓTELES, Tópicos. In: _______. Órganon. 2.ed. São Paulo: EDIPRO, 2010, p. 347-543.BLONDEL, M. L’Action (1893): essai d’une critique de la vie et d’une science de la pratique, Paris: Quadrige, 1993.CARNAP, R. A superação da metafísica por meio da análise lógica da linguagem. In: Cognitio, São Paulo, v. 10, n. 2, jul./dez. 2009, p. 293-309.DESCARTES, R. Discurso do Método. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2001.DILTHEY, W. Introdução às ciências humanas. Rio de Janeiro: Forense, 2010.FANNING, P. A. Isaac Newton e a transmutação da alquimia: uma visão alternativa da revolução científica. Balneário Camboriú (SC): Livraria Danúbio, 2016.GALILEI, G. Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Galileo Galilei. Antonio Favaro (ed.) Florença: Barbéra, 1928-38, 19 Vols.HESSE, Mary. Revolutions and Reconstruction in Philosophy of Science. Brighton, 1980.HUME, D. Investigações sobre o entendimento humano. In: BERKELEY, G.; HUME, D. Tratado sobre os princípios do conhecimento humano; Três diálogos entre Hilas e Filonous em oposição aos Céticos e Ateus; Investigação sobre o entendimento humano; Ensaios morais, políticos e literários. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1978.KUHN, T. La strututtura delle rivoluzioni scientifiche. Torino: [s.n], 1978.LEVINAS, E. Totalité et Infini. [sl]: The Hague, 1971.MACINTYRE, A. Dopo la virtù: Saggio di teoria morale. Milano: Feltrino, 1988.NEIMAN, S. O mal no pensamento moderno: uma história alternativa da filosofia. Rio de Janeiro: DIFEL, 2003.NIETZSCHE, F. Assim falou Zaratustra. 2.ed., Petrópolis: Vozes, 2008.ORTEGA Y GASSET, J. O que é Filosofia? Campinas: Vide Editorial, 2016.PAGANI, S.M.; Luciani, A. (org.) Os Documentos do Processo de Galileu Galilei. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1994.PLATÃO. Teeteto. Tradução de Edson Bini, Bauru/SP: EDIPRO, 2007.POPPER. K. A lógica da descoberta científica. São Paulo: Cultrix, 2001.WHITE, M. O grande livro das coisas horríveis: a crônica definitiva da história das 100 piores atrocidades. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2013. 


The concept of a law of nature, while familiar, is deeply puzzling. Theorists such as Descartes think a divine being governs the universe according to the laws which follow from that being’s own nature. Newton detaches the concept from theology and is agnostic about the ontology underlying the laws of nature. Some later philosophers treat laws as summaries of events or tools for understanding and explanation, or identify the laws with principles and equations fundamental to scientific theories. In the first part of this volume, essays from leading historians of philosophy identify central questions: are laws independent of the things they govern, or do they emanate from the powers of bodies? Are the laws responsible for the patterns we see in nature, or should they be collapsed into those patterns? In the second part, contributors at the forefront of current debate evaluate the role of laws in contemporary Best System, perspectival, Kantian, and powers- or mechanisms-based approaches. These essays take up pressing questions about whether the laws of nature can be consistent with contingency, whether laws are based on the invariants of scientific theories, and how to deal with exceptions to laws. These twelve essays, published here for the first time, will be required reading for anyone interested in metaphysics, philosophy of science, and the histories of these disciplines.


This collection brings together new and important work by both emerging scholars and those who helped shape the field on the nature of causal powers, and the connections between causal powers and other phenomena within metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind. Contributors discuss how one who takes causal powers to be in some sense irreducible should think about laws of nature, scientific practice, causation, modality, space and time, persistence, and the metaphysics of mind.


Author(s):  
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr ◽  
Thea Smaavik Hegstad

Abstract One of the most important elements of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs is the strong commitment to inclusive development, and “leaving no one behind” has emerged as a central theme of the agenda. How did this consensus come about? And what does this term mean and how is it being interpreted? This matters because SDGs shift international norms. Global goals exert influence on policy and action of governments and stakeholders in development operates through discourse. So the language used in formulating the UN Agenda is a terrain of active contestation. This paper aims to explain the politics that led to this term as a core theme. It argues that LNOB was promoted to frame the SDG inequality agenda as inclusive development, focusing on the exclusion of marginalized and vulnerable groups from social opportunities, deflecting attention from the core issues of distribution of income and wealth, and the challenge of “extreme inequality.” The term is adequately vague so as to accommodate wide ranging interpretations. Through a content analysis of LNOB in 43 VNRs, the paper finds that the majority of country strategies identify LNOB as priority to the very poor, and identify it with a strategy for social protection. This narrow interpretation does not respond to the ambition of the 2030 Agenda for transformative change, and the principles of human rights approaches laid out.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Qiang Zha

Abstract This paper examines several research questions relating to equality and equity in Chinese higher education via an extended literature review, which in turn sheds light on evolving scholarly explorations into this theme. First, in the post-massification era, has the Chinese situation of equality and equity in higher education improved or deteriorated since the late 1990s? Second, what are the core issues with respect to equality and equity in Chinese higher education? Third, how have those core issues evolved or changed over time and what does the evolution indicate and entail? Methodologically, this paper uses a bibliometric analysis to detect the topical hotspots in scholarly literature and their changes over time. The study then investigates each of those topical terrains against their temporal contexts in order to gain insights into the core issues.


2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 563-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raf Gelders

In the aftermath of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978), European representations of Eastern cultures have returned to preoccupy the Western academy. Much of this work reiterates the point that nineteenth-century Orientalist scholarship was a corpus of knowledge that was implicated in and reinforced colonial state formation in India. The pivotal role of native informants in the production of colonial discourse and its subsequent use in servicing the material adjuncts of the colonial state notwithstanding, there has been some recognition in South Asian scholarship of the moot point that the colonial constructs themselves built upon an existing, precolonial European discourse on India and its indigenous culture. However, there is as yet little scholarly consensus or indeed literature on the core issues of how and when these edifices came to be formed, or the intellectual and cultural axes they drew from. This genealogy of colonial discourse is the subject of this essay. Its principal concerns are the formalization of a conceptual unit in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, called “Hinduism” today, and the larger reality of European culture and religion that shaped the contours of representation.


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