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On Scientific Progress
Get PDFA central question in philosophy of science and epistemology of science concerns the characterization of the progress of science. Many philosophers of science and epistemologists have developed accounts of scientific progress, laying down desiderata for and providing success criteria of any account of scientific progress. Extant accounts of scientific progress are surveyed and critically assessed and it is shown that all face the same problem. The constitution-promotion distinction – a commitment shared by all the accounts – is identified as the root of the problem for the extant accounts. In their place, a novel way of understanding scientific progress – inspired by pragmatic philosophy of science and zetetic epistemology – which rejects the problematic constitution-promotion distinction, and importantly, which provides a vision of scientific progress without depending on the aim of science is developed
Three Kinds of AI Ethics
Get PDFThere is an overwhelming abundance of works in AI Ethics. This growth is chaotic because of how sudden it is, its volume, and its multidisciplinary nature. This makes difficult to keep track of debates, and to systematically characterize goals, research questions, methods, and expertise required by AI ethicists. In this article, I show that the relation between ‘AI’ and ‘ethics’ can be characterized in at least three ways, which correspond to three well-represented kinds of AI ethics: ethics and AI; ethics in AI; ethics of AI. I elucidate the features of these three kinds of AI Ethics, characterize their research questions, and identify the kind of expertise that each kind needs. I also show how certain criticisms to AI ethics are misplaced, as being done from the point of view of one kind of AI ethics, to another kind with different goals. All in all, this work sheds light on the nature of AI ethics, and sets the groundwork for more informed discussions about the scope, methods, and training of AI ethicists
A Contextual Approach to Technological Understanding and Its Assessment
Get PDFTechnological understanding is not a singular concept but varies depending on the context. Building on De Jong and De Haro’s (2025) notion of technological understanding as the ability to realise an aim by using a technological artefact, this paper further refines the concept as an ability that varies by context and degree. We extend its original specification for a design context by introducing two additional contexts: operation and innovation. Each context represents a distinct way of realising an aim through technology, resulting in three types (specifications) of technological understanding. To further clarify the nature of technological understanding, we propose an assessment framework based on counterfactual reasoning. Each type of understanding is associated with the ability to answer a specific set of what-if questions, addressing changes in an artefact’s structure, performance, or appropriateness. Explicitly distinguishing these different types helps to focus efforts to improve technological understanding, clarifies the epistemic requirements for different forms of engagement with technology, and promotes a pluralistic perspective on expertise
How Knowledge Brokers Shape the Evidence-Based Policy Landscape
Get PDFKnowledge brokers, usually conceptualized as passive intermediaries between scientists and policymakers in evidence-based policymaking, are understudied in philosophy of science. Here, we challenge that usual conceptualization. As agents in their own right, knowledge brokers have their own goals and incentives, which complicate the effects of their presence at the science-policy interface. We illustrate this in an agent-based model and suggest several avenues for further exploration of the role of knowledge brokers in evidence-based policy
The identification of numbers with operators
Get PDFAbstract
This article describes confirmation of the proposition that numbers are identified with operators in the following three steps. 1. The set of operators to construct finite cardinals satisfies Peano Axioms. 2. Accordingly, the natural numbers can be identified with these operators. 3. From the operators, five kinds of operators are derived, and on the basis of the step 2, the integers, the fractions, the real numbers, the complex numbers and the quaternions are identified with the five kinds of operators respectively. These operators stand in a sequential inclusion relationship, in contrast to the embedding relationship between those kinds of numbers defined as sets
How to Interpret the QBist Constraint
Get PDFThis paper refines and applies the QBist constraint, which holds that consciousness requires an irreducibly first-person, self-updating inferential structure. Inspired by Quantum Bayesianism (QBism), the constraint is framed not as a positive theory of consciousness, but as a metatheoretical adequacy condition applicable across candidate frameworks. I argue that theories of consciousness — including the Free Energy Principle, Predictive Processing, Global Workspace Theory, Higher-Order Thought Theory, and Integrated Information Theory — can be evaluated against this constraint. The paper shows how each theory may either accommodate or fall short of satisfying this demand. I close by suggesting that the QBist constraint serves as a useful delimiting principle for theories of consciousness, helping to clarify the role of subjectivity in physicalist models
Inference to the Source
Get PDFIt has been argued that, in scientific observations, the theory of the observed
source should not be involved in the observation process to avoid circular rea-
soning and ensure reliable inferences. However, the issue of underdetermination
of the source has been largely overlooked. I argue that concerns about circularity
in inferring the source stem from the hypothetico-deductive (H-D) method. The
epistemic threat, if any, arises not from the theory-laden nature of observation
but from the underdetermination of the source by the data, since the data could
be explained by proposing incompatible sources for it. Overcoming this under-
determination is key to reliably inferring the source. I propose a bidirectional
version of inference to the only explanation as a methodological framework that
addresses this challenge while circumventing concerns about theory-ladenness.
Nevertheless, fully justifying the viability of the background theoretical frame-
work and its accurate description of the source requires a broader conception
of evidence. To this end, I argue that integrating meta-empirical assessment
into inference to the only explanation offers a promising strategy, extending the
concept of evidence in a justifiable manner
Race as a Regulatory Kind: Constructivist Realism Beyond Naturalism
Get PDFThis paper critically examines the prospects for racial naturalism—the view that racial categories reflect biologically grounded, natural kinds. I distinguish between two main variants: Standard Racial Naturalism (SRN), which depends on discredited essentialist assumptions, and New Racial Naturalism (NRN), which appeals to genetic clustering and geographic ancestry. I argue that SRN is incompatible with modern evolutionary biology and population genetics, while NRN, in attempting to avoid essentialism, fails to preserve any robust notion of natural kindhood. To explain the empirical tractability and institutional durability of race without invoking biological realism, I introduce the concept of a regulatory kind: a socially constructed kind whose classificatory stability is maintained through recursive institutional enforcement. Race, I argue, simulates natural kindhood through epistemic feedback mechanisms embedded in administrative systems, data infrastructures, and policy regimes. This account preserves the metaphysical commitments of constructivist realism while explaining how race appears biologically significant without being a natural kind. It concludes that no existing version of racial naturalism satisfies the empirical, conceptual, or metaphysical conditions required of a coherent scientific taxonomy
On (Some) Gauge Theories of Gravity
Get PDFI consider the sense in which teleparallel gravity and symmetric teleparallel gravity may be understood as gauge theories of gravity. I first argue that both theories have surplus structure. I then consider the relationship between Yang-Mills theory and Poincare Gauge Theory and argue that though these use similar formalisms, there are subtle disanalogies in their interpretation
Algorithmic AI Consciousness
Get PDFI argue that the thoroughly algorithmic nature of current AI systems (such as LLMs) is no obstacle to their being conscious. To this end, I present a picture on which current AI systems comprise dispositional properties which realize categorical phenomenal properties where the latter, in turn, provide the identity conditions for their dispositional realizers. This mutual ontological dependence, or, symmetrical grounding, at the heart of the proposal yields a novel picture of (AI) consciousness that avoids epiphenomenalism and is more permissive regarding the specific nature/functional organization of conscious systems than has been previously suggested. This, in turn, suggests an epistemology of AI consciousness focused on investigating the high-level behaviours of AI systems rather than their low-level functional organization