Empiricism

A scheme is proposed for determining when a psychological treatment for a specific problem or disorder may be considered to be established in efficacy or to be possibly efficacious. The importance of independent replication before a treatment is established in efficacy is emphasized, and a number of factors are elaborated that should be weighed in evaluating whether studies supporting a treatment's efficacy are sound. It is suggested that, in evaluating the benefits of a given treatment, the greatest weight should be given to efficacy trials but that these trials should be followed by research on effectiveness in clinical settings and with various populations and by cost-effectiveness research.

Traditional analyses of the curve fitting problem maintain that the data do not indicate what form the fitted curve should take. Rather, this issue is said to be settled by prior probabilities, by simplicity, or by a background theory. In this paper, we describe a result due to Akaike [1973], which shows how the data can underwrite an inference concerning the curve's form based on an estimate of how predictively accurate it will be. We argue that this approach throws light on the theoretical virtues of parsimoniousness, unification, and non ad hocness, on the dispute about Bayesianism, and on empiricism and scientific realism.

The study of child language acquisition is dominated by three major competing visions: socialization theory, learning theory, and nativist theory. Each takes a different approach to a core issue in developmental psycholinguistics known as the logical problem of language acquisition (LPLA). This paper argues that the LPLA is composed of two, only partially related, sub-problems. The first form of the LPLA emphasizes recovery from overgeneralization. Nativists claim that, contrary to the claims of socialization theory, recovery occurs without corrective feedback under the guidance of innate constraints.

Many adult beliefs are based on the testimony provided by other people rather than on firsthand observation. Children also learn from other people's testimony. For example, they learn that mental processes depend on the brain, that the earth is spherical, and that hidden bodily organs constrain life and death. Such learning might indicate that other people's testimony simply amplifies children's access to empirical data. However, children's understanding of God's special powers and the afterlife shows that their acceptance of others' testimony extends beyond the empirical domain. Thus, children appear to conceptualize unobservable scientific and religious entities similarly. Nevertheless, some children distinguish between the 2 domains, arguably because a different pattern of discourse surrounds scientific as compared to religious entities. Support for this research was provided by NICHD Grant F32 HD42860 to M. A. Koenig. We thank members of the ''stubborn autodidacts?'' seminar and especially Rita Astuti, Fabrice Clément, and Laurence Kaufmann for their comments on this paper.

In the last ten years there has been a significant amount of research in Machine Translation within a "new" paradigm of empirical approaches, often labelled collectively as "Example-based" approaches. The first manifestation of this approach caused some surprise and hostility among observers more used to different ways of working, but the techniques were quickly adopted and adapted by many researchers, often creating hybrid systems. This paper reviews the various research efforts within this paradigm reported to date, and attempts a categorisation of different manifestations of the general approach.

We present an implemented system for processing definite descriptions in arbitrary domains. The design of the system is based on the results of a corpus analysis previously reported, which highlighted the prevalence of discourse-new descriptions in newspaper corpora. The annotated corpus was used to extensively evaluate the proposed techniques for matching definite descriptions with their antecedents, discourse segmentation, recognizing discourse-new descriptions, and suggesting anchors for bridging descriptions.

Meyer, offers a special prologue here for the readers of Amerasia Journal about the significance of Hawaiian epistemology for the mission of Ethnic Studies.) cannot be forged with predictable philosophies. We must restructure from the very bottom up. When we view distinct epistemologies as facets of a student's character and brilliance, we will begin to open our minds to the possibilities-wider and larger possibilities-of what it means to be human in this time of profound transformation. Be careful, though. Reading the enclosed will alter your very molecules because you will now have a way in which to shape an argument and substantiate what you have known to be true all your life. After all, it all begins with a thought. And Philosophy is the garden of all thoughts. Why don't we start there!

This paper suggests that reference to phenomenal qualities is best understood as involving iconicity, that is, a passage from sign-vehicle to object that exploits a similarity between the two. This contrasts with a version of the ‘phenomenal concept strategy’ that takes indexicality to be central. However, since it is doubtful that phenomenal qualities are capable of causally interacting with anything, indexical reference seems inappropriate. While a theorist like David Papineau is independently coming to something akin to iconicity, I think some of the awkwardness that plagues his account would be remedied by transitioning to a more inclusive philosophy of signs.

The conclusion of the Division 12 Task Force's report on empirically supported treatments raises 3 questions: (a) Is it desirable for the profession to specify what treatments are effective? (b) Do the criteria, either selected by the Task Force or modified by others, represent a reasonable way of identifying effective treatments? (c) Would different and less controversial conclusions have been reached if the criteria used were broadened to include naturalistic and quasi-experimental studies? It is concluded that the Task Force's selection of criteria, particularly as modified by D. L. Chambless and S. D. Hollon (1998) , was a reasonable response to these pressures. Findings from studies using less stringent and controlled research designs suggest that the proposals may have resulted in less palatable conclusions than those offered in its original report.

The nativist-empiricist debate and the nativist commitment to the idea of core knowledge and endowments that exist without relevant postnatal experience continue to distract attention from the reality of developmental systems. The developmental systems approach embraces the concept of epigenesis, that is, the view that development emerges via cascades of interactions across multiple levels of causation, from genes to environments. This view is rooted in a broader interpretation of experience and an appreciation for the nonobvious nature of development. We illustrate this systems approach with examples from studies of imprinting, spatial cognition, and language development, revealing the inadequacies of the nativist-empiricist debate and the inconvenient truths of development. Developmental scientists should no longer abide the nativist-empiricist debate and nativists' ungrounded focus on origins. Rather, the future lies in grounding our science in contemporary theory and developmental process.

Although the notion of empiricism looms large in many histories of early modern philosophy, its origins are not well understood. This paper aims to shed light on them. It examines the notions of empirical philosopher, physician, and politician that are employed in a range of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century texts, alongside related notions (e.g. "experimental philosophy") and methodological stances. It concludes that the notion of empiricism used in many histories of early modern thought does not have pre-Kantian origins. It first appeared and became widely used in late eighteenth-century Germany, in the course of the early debates on Kant's Critical philosophy.

Despite the consensus regarding the importance of collaborative empiricism (CE) in Beck's cognitive therapy, absent are operational definitions, measures, or empirical investigations of the construct. Existing research has centered on constructs such as the working alliance and has produced inconsistent findings. It is unclear whether CE is related to treatment outcomes, or whether it mediates other cognitive change processes. This article argues that the core meaning of collaboration in CE, ''sharing the work,'' is not captured by the most frequently used construct of the therapeutic alliance in cognitive therapy research. A theory of CE, based on self-determination theory, is developed that integrates the collaborative and empirical aspects of CE and addresses the motivational aspect of the construct.

My topic is the materialist appropriation of empiricism – as conveyed in the ‘minimal credo’ nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu (which is not just a phrase repeated from Hobbes and Locke to Diderot, but significantly, is also a medical phrase used by Harvey, Mandeville and others). That is, canonical empiricists like Locke go out of their way to state that their project to investigate and articulate the ‘logic of ideas’ is not a scientific project: “I shall not at present meddle with the Physical consideration of the Mind” (Locke 1975, I.i.2), which Kant gets exactly wrong in his reading of Locke, in the Preface to the A edition of the first Critique. Indeed, I have suggested elsewhere, contrary to a prevalent reading of Locke, that the Essay is not the extension to the study of the mind of natural-philosophical methods; that he is actually not the “underlabourer” of Newton and Boyle he claims politely to be in the Epistle to the Reader (Wolfe and Salter 2009, Wolfe 2010). Rather, Locke says quite directly, “Our Business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our Conduct” (Locke 1975, I.i.6). There is more to say here about what this implies for our understanding of empiricism (see Norton 1981 and Gaukroger 2005), but instead I shall focus on a different aspect of this episode: how a non-naturalistic claim which belongs to what we now call epistemology (a claim about the senses as the source of knowledge) becomes an ontology – materialism. That is, how an empiricist claim could shift from being about the sources of knowledge to being about the nature of reality (and/or the mind, in which case it needs, as Hartley saw and Diderot stated more overtly, an account of the relation between mental processes and the brain). (David Armstrong, for one, denied that there could be an identification between empiricism and materialism on this point [Armstrong 1968, 1978]: eighteenth-century history of science seems to prove him wrong.) Put differently, I want to examine the shift from Locke’s logic of ideas to an eighteenth-century focus on what kind of ‘world’ the senses give us (Condillac), to an assertion that there is only one substance in the universe (Diderot, giving a materialist cast to Spinozism), and that we need an account of the material substrate of mental life. This is neither a ‘scientific empiricism’ nor a linear developmental process from philosophical empiricism to natural science, but something else again: the unpredictable emergence of an ontology on empiricist grounds.

Demonstrations of cognitive competence in preschool children and infants played an important role in the waning influence of Piagetian theory and the rise of nativism. Arguments and data favoring modularity have further buttressed the case for nativism. This article reviews evidence concerning early competence and modularity in the spatial and quantitative domains, as well as the role of experience in development. This evidence provides little reason to support nativist claims in either domain.

For many years practitioners have had limited data from double-blind, placebo-controlled studies to guide the types of decision-making needed to optimally manage patients with insomnia in clinical practice. However, in recent years there has been a great increase in insomnia research studies that address issues of clinical importance. This body of work represents an increasingly useful empirical basis for making clinical practice decisions. The purpose of this article is to compile the body of work on the pharmacological management of insomnia to make it available in as accessible form as possible for optimal application in clinical practice with the hopes that doing so will decrease the gap separating the available research and the clinical management of insomnia and, thereby, improve the care of the many individuals who suffer from this condition. The review of studies consists of the following sections: 1) basic pharmacology; 2) double-blind, placebo-controlled trials in adults with primary insomnia; 3) double-blind, placebo-controlled trials in elderly patients with primary insomnia; 4) adverse effects reported in placebo-controlled trials in elderly primary insomnia patients; 5) double-blind, placebocontrolled trials in adults and the elderly as a function of treatment duration; 6) double-blind, placebocontrolled trials of the treatment of comorbid insomnia. Issues related to the application of these data to clinical practice are discussed in the text.

Arithmetic had entered the picture, with its many legs, its many spines and heads, its pitiless eyes made of zeroes. Two and two made four, was its message. But what if you didn't have two and two? Then things wouldn't add up. And they didn't add up, I couldn't get them to; I couldn't get the red numbers in the inventory book to turn black. This worried me horribly; it was as if it was my own personal fault. When I closed my eyes at night I could see the numbers on the page before me, laid out in rows on my square oak desk at the button factory-those rows of red numbers like so many mechanical caterpillars, munching away at what was left of the money. When what you could manage to sell a thing for was less than what it paid you to make itwhich was what was going on at Chase and Sons for some time-this was how numbers behaved. It was bad behaviour-without love, without justice, without mercy-but what could you expect? The numbers were only numbers. They had no choice in the matter.

A variety of ideas arisiüg in decoherence theory, and in the ongoing debate over Everett's relative-state theory, can be linked to issues in relativity theory and the philosophy of time, specifically the relational theory of tense and of identity over time. These have been systematically presented in companion papers (Saunders 1995, 1996a); in what follows we shall consider the same circle of ideas, but specifically in relation to the interpretation of probability, and its identification with relations in the Hilbert space norm. The familiar objection that Everett's approach yields probabilities different from quantum mechanics is easily dealt with. The more fundamental question is how to interpret these probabilities consistent with the relational theory of change, and the relational theory of identity over time. I shall show that the relational theory needs nothing more than the physical, minimal criterion of identity as defined by Everett's theory, and that this can be transparently interpreted in terms of the ordinary notion of the chance occurrence of an event, as witnessed in the present. It is in this sense that the theory has empirical content.

Reconstructions of Romantic-era life science in general, and epigenesis in particular, frequently take the Kantian logic of autotelic ''self-organization'' as their primary reference point. I argue in this essay that the Kantian conceptual rubric hinders our historical and theoretical understanding of epigenesis, Romantic and otherwise. Neither a neutral gloss on epigenesis, nor separable from the episte-mological deflation of biological knowledge that has received intensive scrutiny in the history and philosophy of science, Kant's heuristics of autonomous ''self-or-ganization'' in the third Critique amount to the strategic capture of epigenesis from nature, for thought, in thought's critical transcendence of nature. This essay looks to Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and his English contemporary Erasmus Darwin to begin to reconstruct the rigorously materialist, naturalist, and empiricist theories of epigen-esis (still) marginalized by Kantian argumentation. As theorists of environmental and social collaboration in the ontogeny of viable forms, Lamarck and Darwin illuminate features of our own epigenetic turn obscured by the rhetoric of ''self-organization,'' allowing us to glimpse an alternative Romantic genealogy of the biological present.

In this article, we present a dialogical approach to empirical ethics, based upon hermeneutic ethics and responsive evaluation. Hermeneutic ethics regards experience as the concrete source of moral wisdom. In order to gain a good understanding of moral issues, concrete detailed experiences and perspectives need to be exchanged. Within hermeneutic ethics dialogue is seen as a vehicle for moral learning and developing normative conclusions. Dialogue stands for a specific view on moral epistemology and methodological criteria for moral inquiry. Responsive evaluation involves a structured way of setting up dialogical learning processes, by eliciting stories of participants, exchanging experiences in (homogeneous and heterogeneous) groups and drawing normative conclusions for practice. By combining these traditions we develop both a theoretical and a practical approach to empirical ethics, in which ethical issues are addressed and shaped together with stakeholders in practice. Stakeholders' experiences are not only used as a source for reflection by the ethicist; stakeholders are involved in the process of reflection and analysis, which takes place in a dialogue between participants in practice, facilitated by the ethicist. This dialogical approach to empirical ethics may give rise to questions such as: What contribution does the ethicist make? What role does ethical theory play? What is the relationship between empirical research and ethical theory in the dialogical process? In this article, these questions will be addressed by reflecting upon a project in empirical ethics that was set up in a dialogical way. The aim of this project was to develop and implement normative guidelines with and within practice, in order to improve the practice concerning coercion and compulsion in psychiatry.

This study examines whether the categories ANIMATE/INANIMATE might be formed on the basis of information available to the cognitive system. We suggest that the discrimination of percepts according to these categories relies on proprioceptive information, which allows the perceiving subject to know that he is 'animate'. Since other 'objects' in the world exhibit movements, reactions, etc. similar to those that the subject experiences himself, he can 'project' his knowledge onto these objects and recognize them as 'animate' like himself. On this basis we try to corroborate the empricist position in the debate concerning the organization of knowledge as opposed to the nativist view. Furthermore, we argue that the categorical dichotomy ANIMATE/INANIMATE is more basic than other analogous ones such as LIVING/NON-LIVING, BIOLOGICAL/NON-BIOLOGICAL and we sketch a 'categorical stratification' following the line 'humans-animals-plants' based on the hypothesis that humans detect different degrees of 'vitality' according to the degree of similarity they recognise between the considered instance and themselves.

Translation evaluation is undoubtedly one of the most difficult tasks facing a translator trainer. It is unlikely that there will ever be a ready-made formula that will transform this task into a simple one; however, this article suggests that the task can be made somewhat easier by using a specially designed Evaluation Corpus that can act as a benchmark against which translator trainers can compare student translations.

The primary purpose of this paper is to introduce the papers in this issue of Language Science, dedicated to taking stock of both grammaticalization and so-called`g rammaticalization theory'' (i.e. claims about grammaticalization). This introduction sets the stage for the other papers by surveying the large range of de®nitions of grammaticalization in the literature and placing them in context. It also mentions the major questions addressed by each paper and relates these to the overall themes of the volume, namely clarifying what grammaticalization is (and isn't), highlighting what's good and (in particular) what's bad about grammaticalization theory, and, in the process, contributing to greater understanding of these phenomena. 7

causality between enigma and paradigm, west and us

The The sustainability of social life is based on social values. The manifestation of these values also takes place within the society. On the other hand, the realization of individuals is possible in society because a non-social human being is not a "human" in the philosophical sense. With human-oriented conditions that manifest themselves in the network of social relations, the criteria (moral values) related to the purpose of creation crystallize and become known so that the construction of a social paradigm becomes possible. However, the society in which individuals live is also surrounded by an external world (material world). For this reason, the social paradigm also indirectly relies on a perception of the outside world. Thus, no matter what period of history, people's endeavor for an ideal society is accompanied by an interpretation of the external world, and with this "cumulative" knowledge, a "reducing" simulation of being is derived (cosmology). In fact, causality, which is the subject of physics, becomesthe subject of philosophy in this mediation. As it can be understood, a significant problem here is the correlation between the fixed values (unconditional imperatives) that form the core of the social paradigm and the variable external world knowledge that is culturally effective in the manifestation of these values. Consequently, while determining the rules in the social order, one should act on the basis of values, not as if they have absolute knowledge of the material world. Whether we believe that the universe consists of "seven heavens" and is geocentric or heliocentric; Existential values such as justice, equality, and freedom are essential regardless of time and space. However, as historical facts show, those who have problems with this value system, which is accompanied by an interpretation of the external world, have raised objections through ever-developing knowledge of nature instead of universal values. For this reason, the geocentric perception of the universe, which forms the basis of the political paradigm in the class-based society of medieval Europe, was strongly desired to be maintained by the ruling classes. Ultimately, although this model of the universe collapsed, moral pursuits of human life continued to be sabotaged for the same political reasons, and disinformation began. Thus, scientific studies and the search for the truth (philosophy) were accompanied by endless polemics disguised as "philosophy." In fact, this situation reveals two opposing attitudes that repeat themselves in history, either in the East or the West: paradigmatic attitude (paradigmism) and enigmatic attitude (enigmatism). As a reflection of these two attitudes, the dominant discourse, which categorically accuses even the interest in understanding Western modernization in the Islamic world as heresy, did not occasionally hesitate to refer to some Western references by confirming with a vulgar pragmatism. For instance, Newtonian physics has been ignored. On the other hand, an attempt has been made to jump directly from Aristotelian physics to quantum physics by assuming an overlapping in classical texts. However, facing the new knowledge of nature has more actual consequences than polemics. To face these results and to show the legitimacy of Islamic values in the modern era, which are in conformity with the creation of human beings, the developments in the current knowledge of the universe (modern cosmology) cannot be ignored. This endeavor can be possible only when the philosophical and historical foundations of the subject are examined throughout the Western experience.

ÖZ
İngiltere’de ampirizm, feodalizmden kapitalizme geçiş sürecinde doğa bilimleri ve felsefede yeni bir epistemolojik anlayış ve yöntem olarak ortaya çıkmıştır. Ampiristlere göre insanın sahip olduğu bütün bilgi duyumsal algılamadan kaynaklanmaktadır. Gözlem ve deneyime dayanmayan doğuştan hiçbir bilgi yoktur. Onlar bilginin edinilmesinde algılayan ve deneyimleyen özneyi merkezileştirerek felsefeyi dünyevileştirme eğilimindedirler. Kapitalizmin gelişimine koşut olarak bu dünyevileşme, burjuvazinin ekonomi politik ve hukuk ideolojisinin temellerini biçimlendirmiştir. Üretim kapasitesinin ve verimliliğin artırılması için yeni tekniklerin kullanılması zorunluluğu bilimsel araştırmaları teşvik etmiştir. Ampirizm bu aşamada deney ve gözleme verdiği önem ile bilimsel bir metodoloji olarak ön plana çıkmıştır. Aynı dönemde İngiltere’de ampirizm, felsefinin de bir konusu haline gelmiştir. Epistemolojik bir hüviyet kazanan felsefi ampirizm bilginin kaynağı, nasıl edinildiği, sınırları ve insanın bilme kapasitesi gibi sorunlarla ilgilenmiştir.
Bu çalışmada ampirizmin ortaya çıkışı ve gelişimi öncelikle doğa bilimlerinin bir yöntemi olarak benimsenmesi ekseninde ele alınacaktır. Ardından ampirist felsefe Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley ve Hume gibi en önemli temsilcilerinin epistemolojik görüşleri çerçevesinde değerlendirilecektir. 16. yüzyıldan 18. yüzyıla uzanan süreçte, ampirist filozofların epistemolojik yaklaşımlarındaki değişimler İngiliz ekonomi politik ve hukuki düzenindeki dönüşümler göz önüne alınarak ayrıntılı bir biçimde incelenecektir.
Anahtar Sözcükler: ampirizm, ampirist epistemoloji, ampirist metodoloji, ampirist filozoflar, ampirizm ve kapitalizm ilişkisi

ABSTRACT
Empiricism in England has appeared as a new epistemological thought and method in natural sciences and philosophy in the transition period from feudalism to capitalism. According to empiricists, all the knowledge that human being have arisen from sensory perception. There is no innate knowledge that is not based on observation and experience. They have tended to secularize philosophy by centralizing the perceiving and experiencing subject in the acquisition of knowledge. Concurrent to the development of capitalism, this secularization has formed the foundation of the bourgeoisie’s ideology of political economy and law. The necessity of using new techniques in order to increase production capacity and efficiency has encouraged scientific researches. Empiricism has risen to prominence at this stage as a scientific methodology with its emphasis on experiment and observation. During the same period in England, empiricism has also become a topic of philosophy. Philosophical empiricism, that gained an epistemological character dealt with the problems like the source of knowledge, how it is obtained, its limits and the capacity of human knowing.
In this study the emergence and progress of empiricism will be discussed primarily in the axis of its adoption as a method of natural sciences. Subsequently, empiricist philosophy will be assessed within the framework of the epistemological opinions of its foremost representatives such as Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley and Hume. In the period from the 16th to the 18th centuries, the alterations in the epistemological paradigms of empiricist philosophers will be carefully scrutinized with the transformations in the English political economy and legal order.
Keywords: empiricism, empiricist epistemology, empiricist methodology, empiricist philosophers, relationship between empiricism and capitalism

Nietzsche’s favourable comments about science and the senses have recently been taken as evidence of naturalism. Others focus on his falsification thesis: our beliefs are falsifying interpretations of reality. Clark argues that Nietzsche eventually rejects this thesis. This article utilizes the multiple ways of being science friendly in Nietzsche’s context by focussing on Mach’s neutral monism. Mach’s positivism is a natural development of neo-Kantian positions Nietzsche was reacting to. Section 15 of Beyond Good and Evil is crucial to Clark’s interpretation. The presented interpretation makes better sense of this passage and shows that Nietzsche can accept both falsification and empiricism.

[This is the published paper, also available at <https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-020-09700-1> and <https://rdcu.be/b8FJI>]
In the epistemological tradition, there are two main interpretations of the semantic relation that an empirical theory may bear to the real world. According to realism, the theory-world relationship should be conceived as truth; according to instrumentalism, instead, it should be limited to empirical adequacy. Then, depending on how empirical theories are conceived, either syntactically as a class of sentences, or semantically as a class of models, the concepts of truth and empirical adequacy assume different and specific forms. In this paper, we review two main conceptions of truth (one sentence-based and one model-based) and two of empirical adequacy (one sentence-based and one model-based), we point out their respective difficulties, and we give a first formulation of a new general view of the theory-world relationship, which we call Methodological Constructive Realism (MCR). We then show how the content of MCR can be further specified and expressed in a definite and precise form. The bulk of the paper shows in detail how it is possible to accomplish this goal for the special case of deterministic dynamical phenomena and their correlated deterministic models. This special version of MCR is formulated as an axiomatic extension of set theory, whose specific axioms constitute a formal ontology that provides an adequate framework for analyzing the two semantic relations of truth and empirical correctness, as well as their connections.

Learning of class inclusion by 5-year-olds in response to empirical and logical explanations of an adult's answers was examined. Contrary to the view that young children possess an empirical bias, 5-year-olds learned more, and continued learning for longer, when given logical explanations of correct answers than when given empirical explanations. Once children discovered how to solve the problems, they showed few regressions. Many children in the microgenetic experiment followed the path of change anticipated from previous crosssectional studies, but children in the cross-sectional part of the study seemed to follow a different path. Reasons for the superior effectiveness of the logical explanations were discussed.

This article discusses the relation between empirical and normative approaches in bioethics. The issue of dwarf tossing, while admittedly unusual, is chosen as a point of departure because it challenges the reader to look with fresh eyes upon several central bioethical themes, including human dignity, autonomy, and the protection of vulnerable people. After an overview of current approaches to the integration of empirical and normative ethics, we consider five ways that the empirical and normative can be brought together to speak to the problem of dwarf tossing: prescriptive applied ethics, theoretical ethics, critical applied ethics, particularist ethics and integrated empirical ethics. We defend a position of critical applied ethics that allows for a two-way relation between empirical and normative theories. Against efforts fully to integrate the normative and the empirical into one synthesis, we propose that the two should stand in tension and relation to one another. The approach we endorse acknowledges that a social practice can and should be judged both by the gathering of empirical data and by normative ethics. Critical applied ethics uses a five stage process that includes: (a) determination of the problem, (b) description of the problem, (c) empirical study of effects and alternatives, (d) normative weighing and (e) evaluation of the effects of a decision. In each stage, we explore the perspective from both the empirical (sociological) and the normative ethical point of view. We conclude by applying our five-stage critical applied ethics to the example of dwarf tossing.

This article draws on empirical material concerning the communication and use of knowledge in experimental physics and their relations to the culture of theoretical physics. The role that trust plays in these interactions is used to create a model of social distance between interacting theoretical and experimental cultures. This article thus seeks to reintroduce trust as a fundamental element in answering the problem of disunity in the sociology of knowledge.

This article introduces the special section of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology on empirically supported psychological therapies. After a discussion of the rationale for the selection of the specific terms in the label, several justifications are considered for conducting and learning from empirical evaluations of psychological therapies. Finally, the process that guided the special section is described.

Modalists think that knowledge requires forming your belief in a "modally stable" way: using a method that wouldn't easily go wrong (i.e. safety), or using a method that wouldn't have given you this belief had it been false (i.e. sensitivity). Recent Modalist projects from Justin Clarke-Doane and Dan Baras defend a principle they call "Modal Security," roughly: if evidence undermines your belief, then it must give you a reason to doubt the safety or sensitivity of your belief. Another recent Modalist project from Carlotta Pavese and Bob Beddor defends "Modal Virtue Epistemology": knowledge is a belief that is maximally modally robust across "normal" worlds. We'll offer new objections to these recent Modalist projects. We will then argue for a rival view, Explanationism: knowing something is believing it because it's true. We will show how Explanationism offers a better account of undermining defeaters than Modalism, and a better account of knowledge.

Long after its alleged demise, phlogiston was still presented, discussed and defended by leading chemists. Even some of the leading proponents of the new chemistry admitted its 'absolute existence'. We demonstrate that what was defended under the title 'phlogiston' was no longer a particular hypothesis about combustion and respiration. Rather, it was a set of ontological and epistemological assumptions and the empirical practices associated with them. Lavoisier's gravimetric reduction, in the eyes of the phlogistians, annihilated the autonomy of chemistry together with its peculiar concepts of chemical substance and quality, chemical process and chemical afnity. The defence of phlogiston was the defence of a distinctly chemical conception of matter and its appearances, a conception which reected the chemist's acquaintance with details and particularities of substances, properties and processes and his skills of adducing causal relations from the interplay between their complexity and uniformity.

From experimental philosophers in England to workshop managers in Korea, practitioners across the seventeenth-century world developed new ways of investigating nature while studying saltpeter (potassium nitrate), the chief ingredient of gunpowder. Contrary to global histories that emphasize circulation, however, this early modern convergence had less to do with the fluid movement of knowledge and technology than with the very moments when such movement failed. This essay argues that in Chosŏn Korea (1392-1910) the problem of adopting a Chinese method of manufacture—a "thing that did not work"—proved productive in unexpected ways. In the process of vetting the foreign knowledge, the Korean saltpeterers (artisans and military officers) discovered solutions that suited the local conditions. They also established a mode of experimentalism that used hands-on trials to investigate the natural world, drew on the artisanal techniques of "experiment" (sihŏm) and "prototyping" (kyŏnyang), and operated in two languages-the vernacular, hangŭl script and literary Sinitic.

Discussions of causal inquiry in International Relations are increasingly framed in terms of a contrast between rival philosophical positions, each with a putative methodological corollary — empiricism is associated with a search for patterns of covariation, while scientific realism is associated with a search for causal mechanisms. Scientific realism is, on this basis, claimed to open up avenues of causal inquiry that are unavailable to empiricists. This is misleading. Empiricism appears inferior only if its reformulation by contemporary philosophers of science, such as Bas van Fraassen, is ignored. I therefore develop a fuller account than has previously been provided in International Relations of Van Fraassen’s ‘constructive empiricism’ and how it differs from scientific realism. In light of that, I consider what is at stake in calls for the reconstitution of causal inquiry along scientific realist, rather than empiricist, lines. I argue that scientific realists have failed to make a compelling case that what matters is whether researchers are realists. Constructive empiricism and scientific realism differ only on narrow epistemological and metaphysical grounds that carry no clear implications for the conduct of causal inquiry. Yet, insofar as Van Fraassen has reformed empiricism to meet the scientific realist challenge, this has created a striking disjunction between mainstream practices of causal inquiry in International Relations and the vision of scientific practice that scientific realists and contemporary empiricists share, especially regarding the significance of regularities observed in everyday world politics. Although scientific realist calls for a philosophical revolution in International Relations are overstated, this disjunction demands further consideration.

In a recent article in this journal,Andrew Sayer has argued that much feminist research on the gendered nature of organisations, such as bureaucracy and the market, confuses a contingent association of gender and organisational forms with a stronger claim that they are intrinsically gendered. Sayer accepts that this research has shown that the empirically found, concrete forms of organisations are gendered.However,deeper theoretical reflection, he suggests, reveals that, when considered as ‘abstract realist models’, bureaucracy and the market are, in fact, identity-blind.He makes two claims, one concerned with explanation, the other concerned with the political consequences of social inquiry.The first is that the construction of abstract models, rather than the ‘associational’ thinking concerned with the delineation of empirical regularities, is necessary to the
proper understanding of the operation of causal mechanisms and their mode of determination in social life. The second is that this will enable a more progressive and positive politics beyond a fatalism which he attributes to associational thinking.This paper
takes issue with both claims arguing that the abstract theory he defends has no positive role in social inquiry and that his political critique is misplaced.

Approximately one in five children admitted to a pediatric ICU have a new central nervous system injury or a neurological complication of their critical illness. The spectrum of neurologic insults in children is diverse and clinical practice is largely empirical, as few randomized, controlled trials have been reported. This lack of data poses a substantial challenge to the practice of pediatric neurocritical care (PNCC). PNCC has emerged as a novel subspecialty, and its presence is expanding within tertiary care centers. This review highlights the recent advances in the field, with a focus on traumatic brain injury (TBI), cardiac arrest, and stroke as disease models. Variable approaches to the structure of a PNCC service have been reported, comprising multidisciplinary teams from neurology, critical care, neurosurgery, neuroradiology, and anesthesia. Neurologic morbidity is substantial in critically ill children and the increased use of continuous electroencephalography monitoring h...

Paul Feyerabend once made a remark to the effect that his pragmatic theory of observation can be traced back to proposals put forward by leading Logical Empiricists during the height of the protocol sentence debate. In this paper I want to vindicate the systematic side of Feyerabend's remark and show that a pragmatic theory of observation can in fact be found in Rudolf Carnap's writings of 1932. I first proceed to dispel a misunderstanding concerning the term "pragmatic" raised by Thomas Oberdan. Following Morris' and Carnap's documented usage, I show that the intended meaning of "pragmatic" refers to a specific semiotic relation between users of a language and their environment describable by empirical means (specifically, the causal relation between the verbal behavior of language users and their environment). I reconstruct such a pragmatic theory in terms of a detector model that interprets observation sentences as bodily dispositions indicating physical events in the surroundings of the detector. I then proceed to show how Feyerabend's later theory of observation picks up central features of Carnap's account and also shares some of the motivations. I conclude by noting how an empirical theory of observation sentences offers a bootstrapping solution to the "basis problem".

With the growth in recent years of studies of decisional capacity for research among people with schizophrenia, this is an opportune time to ask three questions: What have we learned from these studies? What remains to be learned? And what normative issues still need to be resolved? Among the things learned are that patients with schizophrenia, as a group, have lower scores on measures of decisional capacity than normals, but higher performance than patients with dementia. However, performance is highly variable within the group, correlates most strongly with neuropsychological impairment, and seems susceptible in many patients to successful remediation. The issues that remain in need of exploration include the development of a brief screening instrument for decisional capacity that can be used routinely, and the identification of those patients most likely to benefit from more intensive informational procedures. Finally, among the normative issues still in need of resolution are the degree of capacity needed to consent to research participation, how to deal with fluctuating capacity during research projects, and the legitimate extent of surrogate consent for participation of incompetent patients in research.

The optical instruments developed through the seventeenth century allowed peering into the very far and the very small; a spectacle never before experienced. The telescope, and later the microscope, was now expected to answer fundamental questions and resolve cosmological riddles by direct observation into the foundations of nature. But this ability came at an unexpected price and with unexpected results. For Kepler and Galileo, the new instruments did not offer extension and improvement to the senses; they replaced them altogether. To rely on their authority was to admit that the human eye is nothing but an instrument, and a flawed one at that. Rather than the intellect's window to the world, the human senses became a part of this world, a source of obscure and unreliable data, demanding uncertain deciphering. Accurate scientific observation meant that we are always wrong.

The recent work on skin-brain thesis (de Wiljes et al. 2015; F. A. Keijzer 2015; 2013) suggests the possibility that there is an empirical proof that empiricism is false. It implies that early animals need no traditional sensory receptors to be engaged in cognitive activity. The neural structure required to coordinate extensive sheets of contractile tissue for motility provides the starting point for a new multicellular organized form of sensing. Moving a body by muscle contraction provides the basis for a multicellular organization that is sensitive to external surface structure at the scale of the animal body. In other words, evolutionary speaking, the nervous system evolved for action, not for receiving the sensory input. So, in other words, sensory input is not required for minimal cognition; only action is. The whole body of an organism, in particular its highly specific animal sensorimotor organization, reflects the bodily and environmental spatiotemporal structure. The skin-brain thesis suggests that in contrast to empiricism that claims that cognition is constituted by sensory systems, cognition is constituted by action-oriented feedback mechanisms. Instead of positing the reflex arc as the elementary building block of nervous systems, it suggests that endogenous motor activity is the crucial part of a cognitive system.