Marco Buzzoni

The Agency Theory of Causality, Anthropomorphism, and Simultaneity

The purpose of this article is to examine two important issues concerning the agency theory of causality: the charge of anthropomorphism and the relation of simultaneous causation. After a brief outline of the agency theory, sections 2–4 contain the refutation of the three main forms in which the charge of anthropomorphism is to be found in the literature. It will appear that it is necessary to distinguish between the subjective and the objective aspect of the concept of causation. This will lead, in section 5, to contrast two kinds of anthropomorphism, one which has been rightly rejected by modern science and one which is fully compatible with the objective reality of the causal processes. Finally, section 6 will apply the preceding considerations to simultaneous causation. On the one hand, in a basic sense, there can be no simultaneous causal relations. On the other hand, simultaneous causation arises when we consider the natural change by abstracting from the agent and from her/his projects of intervention in reality.

ERKENNTNISTHEORETISCHE UND ONTOLOGISCHE PROBLEME DER THEORETISCHEN BEGRIFFE

AbstractOperationalism and theoretical entities. The thesis of the“theory ladenness” of observation leads to an antinomy. In order to solve this antinomy a technical operationalism is sketched, according to which theories should in principle not contain anything that cannot be reduced to technical procedures. This implies the rejection of Quines underdeterminacy thesis and of many views about the theoretical-observational distinction, e.g. neopositivistic views, van Fraassens view, Sneed-Stegmüllers view. Then I argue for the following theses: 1. All scientific concepts are theory laden in the sense that they allow us to anticipate possible experiences, but they have to be in principle fully observable, i.e. integrally convertible into operational-technical applications. 2. The observation/theory distinction can be maintained as a historical one: what is observable depends on the instruments that are available at any stage of the development of science. 3.In principle theoretical entities are empirically real in Hackings sense. However, some aspects of Hackings realism are to be criticized. Theoretical entities are to be resolved into the totality of the interrelated properties accessible to us by means of theoretical points of view embodied in scientific instruments.

The Operationalistic and Hermeneutic Status of Psychoanalysis

Hermeneutic and anti-hermeneutic sides in the debate about psychoanalysis are entangled in an epistemological and methodological antinomy, here exemplified by Grünbaums and Spences paradigmatic views. Both contain a partial element of truth, which they assert dialectically one against the other (§§ 1 and 2). This antinomy disappears only by reconciling an operationalist approach with mans ability to suspend the effectiveness of the‘laws’ applied to him (§ 3). The hermeneutic way in which the technical-operational criterion of truth works in psychoanalysis demands that clinical and extra-clinical testing methods work synergically, through a fruitful self-correcting strategy, grounded on the very psychoanalytic object: the unconscious (§ 4).

ON MEDICINE AS A HUMAN SCIENCE

All the powerful influences exertedby the subjective-interpersonal dimension onthe organic or technical-functional dimensionof sickness and health do not make anintersubjective test concerning medicaltherapeutic results impossible. Theseinfluences are not arbitrary; on the contrary,they obey “laws” that are de facto sufficientlystable to allow predictions and explanationssimilar to those of experimental sciences.While, in this respect, the rules concerninghuman action are analogous to the scientificlaws of nature, they can at any time be revokedby becoming aware of them. Law-like andreproducible regularities in the sciences ofman are by no means separated from a patientspersonal-hermeneutic mediation. This makes itpossible for human beings to modify, improve orsometimes even entirely (or better almostentirely) suspend these psychological,sociological, ethnological, medical,regularities. For this reason the sciences ofman including medicine are under the obligationof constantly inspecting the continuingvalidity of the rules on which theirpredictions and explanations are based, namelyby indirect, statistical methods. Thisrequires a synergistic collaboration ofextra-clinical and clinical tests through whichmedicine can obtain a good level ofintersubjective testability.

Is Frankenstein’s creature a machine or artificially created human life? Intentionality between searle and turing

To bring to the fore some elements of truth both in the Turing Test and in Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment, we need to distinguish between two different senses of intentionality: a reflexive-transcendental sense and a positive-empirical one. In the first sense, intentionality is intimately connected with thought experimentation and denotes the capacity of the mind to assume as merely possible any actually given reality. Pace Searle, we have no idea as to how intentionality, in this transcendental sense, may be implemented not only in a Turing machine, but also in any robot, brain or living being produced by our scientific and technical intelligence. This is why, in case a machine passed the Turing Test, neither science nor philosophy can find an answer to the question whether the artificial life so produced, or the creature in Frankenstein’s novel, is a human being or a dangerous machine. However, such a choice could and should be made by assuming the supreme value of the human person and by applying the principle of precaution. La distinzione tra due differenti sensi dell’intenzionalita, riflessivo-trascendentale e positivo-empirico, aiuta a porre in luce validita e limiti sia del test di Turing sia dell’esperimento mentale della stanza cinese di Searle. Nel senso trascendentale, l’intenzionalita e intrinsecamente connessa alla sperimentazione mentale e denota la capacita della mente di assumere controfattualmente, come meramente possibile, qualsiasi realta effettivamente data. Pace Searle, non riusciamo a concepire in quale modo sia possibile implementare l’intenzionalita intesa in questo senso non solo in una macchina di Turing, ma neppure in un robot, cervello o essere vivente prodotto grazie alla nostra intelligenza scientifico-tecnica. A rigore, questo significa che, nel caso in cui una macchina superasse il test di Turing, ne la scienza ne la filosofia sarebbero in grado di rispondere alla domanda se la vita artificiale cosi prodotta (o il mostro del romanzo Frankenstein) sarebbe un essere umano o una macchina pericolosa. Questa scelta, pero, potrebbe e dovrebbe essere compiuta assumendo a guida il valore supremo della persona umana e il principio di precauzione.

Robustness, Intersubjective Reproducibility, and Scientific Realism

It is common to distinguish three main senses of the term “robustness”: (1) Robustness of models; (2) Robustness as stability or insensitivity of output as against variations in parameter values; (3) Robustness as consilience of results from different and independent hypotheses, procedures or sources of evidence. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the last two meanings of robustness, in order to cope with some difficulties with which robustness as consilience is confronted and which have indirect consequences for the problem of scientific realism. On the one hand, robustness regarded as reproducible stability as against perturbations and variations in parameter values (robustness-as-stability) and robustness as consilience of results from different and independent pieces of evidence (robustness-as-consilience) are conceptually distinct. On the other hand, however, robustness-as-stability is a condition of robustness-as-consilience; and the converse holds also: robustness-as-consilience is an essential ingredient of robustness-as-stability. There is no vicious circle here, but a technical-practical synergy, which is at the heart of the experimental method, and which can help us out of the two main problems for robustness-as-consilience.

Pierre Duhem and Ernst Mach on Thought Experiments

The conventional interpretation that Pierre Duhem condemned outright any type of thought experiment in Ernst Mach’s sense should be, at least in large part, rejected. Although Duhem placed particular emphasis on the perils of thought experiments that Mach had overlooked or at least underestimated, he retained the core idea of Mach’s theory, according to which thought experiments cannot break free from the ultimate authority of real-world experiments. This similarity between Duhem’s and Mach’s views about thought experiments is not the only one. Just as there was in Duhem’s criticism of “expériences fictives” a tendency leading him to give voice to one of Mach’s basic empiricist claims, so also there was in Mach’s interpretation of thought experiments a tendency in the direction of Duhem’s conventionalism. If Mach’s and Duhem’s conceptions of thought experiments are compared, there results an importantly similar, although not identical, tension that should properly be taken into account in the more general comparison between Mach and Duhem.

Thought Experiments and Computer Simulations

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate some important aspects of the relationship between thought experiment (hereafter TE) and computer simulation (hereafter CS), from the point of view of real experiment (RE). In the first part of this paper, I shall pass in critical review four important approaches concerning the relationship between TE and CS. None of these approaches, though containing some important insights, has succeeded in distinguishing between CS and TE, on the one hand, and REs, on the other. Neither have they succeeded in distinguishing TEs and REs (Sect. 1–4). In Sect. 5, the paper briefly outlines an account of CSs as compared with TEs that takes REs as a central reference point. From the perspective of the analysis of the empirico-experimental intensions of the concepts of TE, CS, and RE—considering their empirical content and actual performance within a discipline—the attempts to find a distinction in logical kind between TEs, CSs and REs breaks down: for every particular characteristic of one of these notions there is a corresponding characteristic in the two others. From an epistemological-transcendental point of view, the only difference in kind between TEs and CSs consists in the fact that any simulation, even a computer one, involves a kind of real execution, one that is not merely psychological or conceptual. In TEs the subject operates concretely by using mental concepts in the first person; in contrast, real experiments and simulations involve an ‘external’ realisation. As shown in Sect. 6, this manifests itself in the higher degree of complexity often found in CSs as compared with TEs.

Science and Operationality

One of the most important aspects of Evandro Agazzi’s operationalism lies in his attempt to wed the main idea of operationalism with a perspectival view of scientific knowledge. In the Sect. 1 of this paper I argue that this connection is essential to understanding Agazzi’s substantial contribution to the philosophy of science. In the Sect. 2, I briefly compare Agazzi’s and Searle’s treatment of Turing ’s test, to show how important the notion of perspectival knowledge is for Agazzi . In the last section of my paper, even though I essentially agree with Agazzi’s operationalism, I raise some doubts concerning the relationship between theory and experiment and the connection between science and technique, and I propose the modifications that I believe are needed to make Agazzi’s operationalism more consistent.

On thought experiments and the Kantian a priori in the natural sciences: a reply to Yiftach J.H. Fehige

This paper replies to objections that have been raised against my operational-Kantian account of thought experiments by Fehige 2012 and 2013. Fehige also sketches an alternative Neo-Kantian account that utilizes Michael Friedman’s concept of a contingent and changeable a priori. To this I shall reply, first, that Fehige’s objections not only neglect some fundamental points I had made as regards the realizability of TEs, but also underestimate the principle of empiricism, which was rightly defended by Kant. Secondly, in opposition to what he states, my account does not differ in a very essential way from the empiricist solutions either as regards the power of TEs to predict something new about empirical reality, or as regards the criteria for telling apart good from bad TEs. Thirdly, in the light of the Kantian definition of the a priori, Friedman’s corresponding notion is contrary both to the spirit and to the letter of Kant’s philosophy; moreover, from a theoretical point of view, a material a priori is theoretically untenable since, counter to Friedman’s own intentions, it leads to relativism. Lo scritto risponde alle obiezioni di Fehige 2012 e 2013 contro la mia concezione operazionale-kantiana degli EM, cui egli contrappone un’alternativa che si basa sull’interpretazione di Friedman dell’a priori kantiano. Le obiezioni di Fehige, in primo luogo, non discutono abbastanza a fondo il senso in cui la realizzabilita in linea di principio dev’essere distinta da quella di fatto. In secondo luogo, il mio punto di vista non si distacca molto dalle soluzioni empiristiche ne nello spiegare la capacita degli EM di prevedere qualcosa di nuovo circa la realta empirica, ne per i criteri di valutazione degli EM. In terzo luogo, alla luce della definizione kantiana dell’a priori, la corrispondente nozione di Friedman e contraria sia alla lettera sia allo spirito della filosofia di Kant. Infine, da un punto di vista teoretico-sistematico, l’a priori di Friedman e indifendibile, perche, contro i suoi intenti, conduce al relativismo.