Re-engineering philosophy for limited beings : piecewise approximations to reality / William C. Wimsatt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wimsatt, William C.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Philosophy.

Physical Description:

xvi, 450 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2007.

Contents:

1 Myths of LaPlacean Omniscience 3

Realism for Limited Beings in a Rich, Messy World 5

Social Natures 7

Heuristics as Adaptations for the Real World 8

Nature as Backwoods Mechanic and Used-Parts Dealer 9

Error and Change 11

Organization and Aims of This Book 12

2 Normative Idealizations versus the Metabolism of Error 15

Inadequacies of Our Normative Idealizations 15

Satisficing, Heuristics, and Possible Behavior for Real Agents 19

The Productive Use of Error-Prone Procedures 21

3 Toward a Philosophy for Limited Beings 26

The Stance and Outlook of a Scientifically Informed Philosophy of Science 26

Ceteris Paribus, Complexity, and Philosophical Method 28

Our Present and Future Naturalistic Philosophical Methods 32

II Problem-Solving Strategies for Complex Systems 37

4 Robustness, Reliability, and Overdetermination 43

Common Features of Concepts of Robustness 44

Robustness and the Structure of Theories 46

Robustness, Testability, and the Nature of Theoretical Terms 52

Robustness, Redundancy, and Discovery 56

Robustness, Objectification, and Realism 60

Robustness and Levels of Organization 63

Heuristics and Robustness 67

Robustness, Independence, and Pseudo-Robustness: A Case Study 71

5 Heuristics and the Study of Human Behavior 75

Heuristics 76

Reductionist Research Strategies and Their Biases 80

An Example of Reductionist Biases: Models of Group Selection 84

Heuristics Can Hide Their Tracks 86

Two Strategies for Correcting Reductionist Biases 89

The Importance of Heuristics in the Study of Human Behavior 90

6 False Models as Means to Truer Theories 94

Even the Best Models Have Biases 95

The Concept of a Neutral Model 97

How Models Can Misrepresent 100

Twelve Things to Do with False Models 103

Background of the Debate over Linkage Mapping in Genetics 106

Castle's Attack on the Linear Linkage Model 114

Muller's Data and the Haldane Mapping Function 117

Muller's Two-Dimensional Arguments against Castle 121

Multiply-Counterfactual Uses of False Models 123

False Models Can Provide New Predictive Tests Highlighting Features of a Preferred Model 126

False Models and Adaptive Design Arguments 128

7 Robustness and Entrenchment: How the Contingent Becomes Necessary 133

Generative Entrenchment and the Architecture of Adaptive Design 133

Generative Systems Come to Dominate in Evolutionary Processes 135

Resistance to Foundational Revisions 137

Bootstrapping Feedbacks: Differential Dependencies and Stable Generators 139

Implications of Generative Entrenchment 140

Generative Entrenchment and Robustness 141

8 Lewontin's Evidence (That There Isn't Any) 146

Is Evidence Impotent, or Just Inconstant? 148

False Models as Means to Truer Theories 152

Narrative Accounts and Theory as Montage 154

III Reductionism(s) in Practice 159

9 Complexity and Organization 179

Reductionism and the Analysis of Complex Systems 179

Complexity 181

Evolution, Complexity, and Organization 186

Complexity and the Localization of Function 190

10 The Ontology of Complex Systems: Levels of Organization, Perspectives, and Causal Thickets 193

Robustness and Reality 195

Levels of Organization 201

Perspectives: A Preliminary Characterization 227

Causal Thickets 237

11 Reductive Explanation: A Functional Account 241

Two Kinds of Rational Reconstruction 243

Successional versus Inter-Level Reductions 245

Levels of Organization and the Co-Evolution and Development of Inter-Level Theories 249

Two Views of Explanation: Major Factors and Mechanisms versus Laws and Deductive Completeness 255

Levels of Organization and Explanatory Costs and Benefits 258

Identificatory Hypotheses as Tools in the Search for Explanations 266

Appendix Modifications Appropriate to a Cost-Benefit Version of Salmon's Account of Explanation 270

12 Emergence as Non-Aggregativity and the Biases of Reductionisms 274

Reduction and Emergence 274

Aggregativity 277

Perspectival, Contextual, and Representational Complexities; or, "It Ain't Quite So Simple as That!" 287

Adaptation to Fine- and Coarse-Grained Environments: Derivational Paradoxes for a Formal Account of Aggregativity 296

Aggregativity and Dimensionality 301

Aggregativity as a Heuristic for Evaluating Decompositions, and Our Concepts of Natural Kinds 303

Reductionisms and Biases Revisited 308

IV Engineering an Evolutionary View of Science 313

13 Epilogue: On the Softening of the Hard Sciences 319

From Straw-Man Reductionist to Lover of Complexity 322

Messiness in State-of-the-Art Theoretical Physics 324

Hidden Elegance and Revelations in Run-of-the-Mill Applied Science 327

"Pure" versus Applied Science, and What Difference Should It Make? 335

Hortatory Closure 339

Appendix A Important Properties of Heuristics 345

Appendix B Common Reductionistic Heuristics 347

Appendix D A Panoply of LaPlacean and Leibnizian Demons 161.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [405]-429) and index.

ISBN:

9780674015456

0674015452

OCLC:

76898039