1,720,959 research outputs found
The Epistemological Import of Euclidean Diagrams (in a non-Euclidean world)
No full textIn this paper I concentrate on Euclidean diagrams, namely on those diagrams that are licensed by the rules of Euclid's plane geometry. I shall overview some philosophical stances that have recently been proposed in philosophy of mathematics to account for the role of such diagrams in mathematics, and more particularly in Euclid's Elements. Furthermore, I shall provide an original analysis of the epistemic role that Euclidean diagrams may (and, indeed) have in empirical sciences, more specifically in physics. I shall claim that, although the world we live in is not Euclidean, Euclidean diagrams permit to obtain knowledge of the world through a pecific mechanism of inference I shall call inheritance
Parsimony, Ontological Commitment and the Import of Mathematics
No full textIn a recent paper Alan Baker has argued for the thesis that the use of a stronger mathematical apparatus in optimization explanations can reduce our concrete ontological commitment, and this results in an increase of explanatory power. The import of this thesis in the context of the Enhanced Indispensability Argument is significant because it sheds light on how the Inference to the Best Explanation principle, on which the Enhanced Indispensability Argument crucially depends, may work at the level of concrete and mathematical posits in scientific explanations. In this paper I examine Baker’s position and I argue that, although the employment of additional mathematical resources in some explanations can enhance explanatory power, it is highly controversial that Baker’s example of cicadas can have a strong import in the platonism vs nominalism debate. I conclude with a general discussion of the way in which a stronger mathematical apparatus may sometimes lead to an increase of explanatory power
Learning from Euler. From Mathematical Practice to Mathematical Explanation
Full text linkInternational audienceIn his "Découverte d'un nouveau principe de mécanique" (1750) Euler offered, for the first time, a proof of the so-called Euler's Theorem. In this paper I will focus on Euler's original proof and I will show how a look at Euler's practice as a mathematician can inform the philosophical debate about the notion of explanatory proofs in mathematics. In particular, I will show how one of the major accounts of mathematical explanation, the one proposed by Mark Steiner in his paper "Mathematical explanation" (1978), is not able to account for the explanatory character of Euler's proof. This contradicts the original intuitions of the mathematician Euler, who attributed to his proof a particular explanatory character
Deductive Nomological Model and Mathematics: Making Dissatisfaction more Satisfactory
Full text linkThe discussion on mathematical explanation has inherited the same sense of dissatisfaction that philosophers of science expressed, in the context of scientific explanation, towards the deductive-nomological model. This model is regarded as unable to cover cases of bona fide mathematical explanations and, furthermore, it is largely ignored in the relevant literature. Surprisingly, the reasons for this ostracism are not sufficiently manifest. In this paper I explore a possible extension of the model to the case of mathematical explanations and I claim that there are at least two reasons to judge the deductive-nomological picture of explanation as inadequate in that context.</p
Using Mathematics to Explain a Scientific Theory
No full textInternational audienceWe answer three questions: 1. Can we give a wholly mathematical explanation of a physical phenomenon? 2. Can we give a wholly mathematical explanation for a whole physical theory? 3. What is gained or lost in giving a wholly, or partially, mathematical explanation of a phenomenon or a scientific theory? To answer these questions we look at a project developed by Hajnal Andréka, Judit Madarász, István Németi and Gergely Székely. They, together with collaborators, present special relativity theory in a three-sorted first-order formal language
Prediction of structurally-determined coiled-coil domains with Hidden Markov Models
No full textThe coiled-coil protein domain is a widespread structural motif known to be involved in a wealth of key interactions in cells and organisms. Coiled-coil recognition and prediction of their location in a protein sequence are important steps for modeling protein structure and function. Nowadays, thanks to the increasing number of experimentally determined protein structures, a significant number of coiled-coil protein domains is available. This enables the development of methods suited to predict the coiled-coil structural motifs starting from the protein sequence. Several methods have been developed to predict classical heptads using manually annotated coiled-coil domains. In this paper we focus on the prediction structurally-determined coiled-coil segments. We introduce a new method based on hidden Markov models that complement the existing methods and outperforms them in the task of locating structurally-defined coiled-coil segments
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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