Observation in Science

This paper fixes observation within the second system of Kasei-Theory as a non-modal local readability condition without subject. -/- Observation is not introduced as subject-act, observer, cognition, perception, measurement, empirical access, registration, evidence, collapse, object-formation, or ontology. Reading does not establish observation. Time does not establish observation. Configuration does not establish observation. Observation does not establish subject. -/- Observation is fixed only as the local readability condition under which ordered maintainability is readable as observation without subject. This readability does not (...) establish an observer, cognitive act, perceptual field, measured object, empirical access, evidential ground, collapse, or objecthood. -/- This paper does not present a completed theory of observation, subject, observer, cognition, perception, measurement, access, evidence, collapse, object, empirical knowledge, physical measurement, or epistemic foundation. It fixes only observation as local readability within configurational maintainability. -/- No observer is presupposed. No cognition is introduced. No perception is introduced. No measurement is established. No collapse is introduced. No object is formed. No completion is introduced. (shrink)

Without a doubt, theories of modern physics are extremely successful. Yet, despite these successes, the incompatibility of general relativity and quantum theory has divided the physics community into two camps. Both, however, share the unshakable belief that gravity is exclusively attractive. It is precisely this fundamental assumption that is challenged in this work: over 29 years of fascination with repulsive gravity have brought the author, Marcoen J.T.F. Cabbolet, to the final edition of his dissertation, methodologically structured after Descartes’ Meditations. The (...) destructive phase deconstructs the current consensus, challenging deeply entrenched beliefs regarding the experimental status and adequacy of modern quantum physics. The foundational phase introduces a new formal language for physics to develop Elementary Process Theory (EPT). It replaces the traditional three-dimensionalistic world view in terms of particles—objects that go through time—and interactions with a four-dimensionalistic world view in terms of occurrents—objects that are spread out in time—and discrete transitions. The constructive phase unites gravity with electromagnetism in the framework of EPT: it delivers a relativistic model of a gravito-electromagnetic interaction predicting repulsive gravity. The author demonstrates that under suitable conditions, this model recovers the empirical successes of special relativity and classical theories of gravity and electromagnetism. A distinctive feature of this monograph is the inclusion of "Objections and Replies" at the end of each chapter. These sections provide a rigorous, transparent analysis of the often pseudoskeptical counterarguments encountered over three decades, offering a unique historical record of the resistance to research in the foundations of physics that challenges the mainstream. (shrink)

How should directionality-adjacent claims be measured across a heterogeneous scientific literature without collapsing distinct phenomena into a single thematic category? This study addresses that question by introducing a conservative measurement-layer audit protocol for two explicitly defined markers — entropy production and irreversibility — and applying it to a fixed 12-study cohort. The completed output is a 24-item study x marker matrix built from accepted records produced through machine extraction, source PDF review, and deterministic export. -/- The resulting matrix shows a (...) nested pattern within the present cohort. Explicit irreversibility is broader than explicit entropy-production measurement, and all entropy-production-positive cases also fall within the irreversibility-positive subset. Across the 12 studies, entropy production is positive in 4 cases and irreversibility is positive in 9 cases, with no entropy-positive / irreversibility-negative cases. -/- A separate post-collection inter-rater reliability follow-up was then conducted on the same 24 study-marker items. Three retained streams — a blinded GPT baseline run, a refined-instrument GPT rerun, and a Claude Opus sensitivity run — each produced 18 matches out of 24 items, or 75 percent agreement. Kappa values ranged from 0.50 to 0.52, which falls in the moderate-agreement range under the Landis and Koch heuristic; however, because the present analysis is based on a small 24-item binary matrix with uneven marker prevalences, these kappa values should be read cautiously rather than as prevalence-invariant estimates. The refined GPT rerun did not change the binary result set, while Claude Opus changed which irreversibility cases disagreed without improving the topline agreement. -/- The main contribution is methodological. The protocol separates marker measurement from thematic inference and makes each accepted record source-traceable, providing a conservative and reproducible footing for later hypothesis testing and theory evaluation. -/- Note: Reproducibility Packet for "A Measurement-Layer Audit Protocol for Directionality-Adjacent Markers available at Zenodo. See external links. (shrink)

This paper proposes a unified framework for understanding knowledge, perception, and reality grounded in a single principle: all access to reality is mediated through detectable signals and constructed through processes of signal generation, detection, and interpretation. No observer—biological or artificial—has direct, unmediated access to external truth; instead, all knowledge arises from processes that involve the generation, detection, and interpretation of physical, chemical, or informational traces available in the present. Building on this premise, the paper distinguishes between belief and knowledge, arguing (...) that confirmation is a necessary condition for knowledge, while also recognizing intrinsic limits to what can be verified. It develops a signal-based epistemology in which perception, memory, and scientific inquiry are understood as structured methods of extracting and interpreting signals. Within this framework, memory is not treated as a literal recording of past events, but as a reconstructive process grounded in present neural states, and internal mental phenomena—such as intentions, desires, and emotions—are accessed through signal-mediated processes that involve both interpretation and active generation, rather than direct observation of fully formed internal objects. The analysis further examines constraints imposed by established physics, including limits from thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics, alongside computational and logical boundaries. These constraints reinforce the central claim that not all truths about reality are epistemically accessible, even if they are ontologically determinate. The paper also distinguishes between simulation and instantiation, arguing that digital systems can represent biological processes but do not constitute biological reality themselves, emphasizing the importance of substrate in discussions of mind, consciousness, and potential “uploading” scenarios. Across domains—including neuroscience, artificial intelligence, physics, and philosophy—the framework highlights a consistent structure: detection depends on signals, and understanding depends on interpretation. This leads to a broader conclusion that the limits of knowledge are not merely technological but are rooted in the fundamental structure of how systems interact with reality. The goal of this work is not to provide a complete theory of mind or physics, but to establish a coherent, cross-domain foundation for understanding the relationship between information, perception, and reality, and to clarify the boundaries within which knowledge can be meaningfully claimed. (shrink)

This paper establishes the principle of source inaccessibility as a general structural condition of scientific knowledge. It argues that empirical observation does not provide access to underlying sources or systems, but produces structured traces within interface-constrained processes of registration. -/- The standard assumption that observations allow, at least in principle, the reconstruction of a unique source is shown to rely on an implicit epistemic leap grounded in the unjustified treatment of observation as an invertible mapping. In general, the mapping from (...) interactions to registrations is non-invertible, implying that observations determine equivalence classes of admissible interactions rather than unique underlying causes. -/- On this basis, the paper proposes a systematic reinterpretation of core scientific notions. Objects are treated as admissible regions in the space of registrations, laws as constraints on transformations of traces, and invariants as stable structures of variability. Statistical constructs and state-based models are reinterpreted as operator-dependent representations rather than descriptions of hidden reality. -/- The analysis is supported by examples from multiple disciplines, indicating that the absence of direct access to sources is a general feature of scientific inquiry. The paper concludes by motivating a General Interface Epistemology of Science, in which admissible regions and their transformations form the primary objects of analysis. (shrink)

This paper expands the Universal Principle of Collapse (UPC) by introducing a new structural layer: the consensus‑dependence of objectivity. While UPC has previously formalized the sequence Source → Observer → Collapse → Reality, it has not explicitly addressed why some collapses appear “objective” while others remain private. Building on the formal distinction between recognition, articulation, and collapse, we show that objectivity is not an independent property of the world but a high‑consensus collapse among observers whose recognition operators and models align (...) due to shared biological constraints. This insight dissolves the assumption of absolute objectivity, clarifies the distinction between physical phenomena and abstractions, and reveals a structural error, “stolen objectivity”, in which humans illegitimately project high‑consensus rules onto low‑consensus domains. By deriving this consensus‑layer from the same operators that govern collapse across domains, the paper demonstrates how UPC resolves paradoxes in consciousness, argumentation, and quantum measurement, including Wigner’s Friend. The results presented here are structural consequences of the UPC formalism rather than empirical claims about physical ontology. March 19, 2026. (shrink)

This paper defends a new argument in the spirit of Golemon and Graber’s Deductive No-Miracles Argument (DNMA) for scientific realism, recently criticized by Kok Yong Lee. While Lee argues that the DNMA is invalid or leads to a collapse in probability assignments, I develop an Inductive No-Miracles Argument (INMA) that preserves logical strength without relying on abductive inference or explanatory premises. By introducing an “approximately equal” probabilistic operator (≈), I show how probabilistic reasoning can license a strong inductive inference without (...) collapsing probability calculus. The resulting INMA satisfies the desiderata motivating the DNMA and clarifies how probabilistic reasoning can underwrite realist inference without appeal to explanatory virtue. Moreover, the structure argued for seems ripe for use in other contexts where avoiding abduction in lieu of less theory-laden probability is attractive, such as fine-tuning arguments and evolutionary debunking arguments. (shrink)

This paper investigates the relation between two frameworks addressing the structure of scientific observation and temporal order: Coherent Observational Epistemology (COE) and the Theory of Global Time (TGT). The apparent tension between them reflects a deeper philosophical problem concerning the relation between epistemic reconstruction and ontological temporal structure. -/- COE analyzes the conditions under which heterogeneous observational sequences produced by independent observational localities can be integrated into a coherent evidential structure. In this framework, global observational order arises as an epistemic (...) construction resulting from structural compatibility between local observational practices. -/- The Theory of Global Time approaches temporal structure from a different perspective. Rather than treating time as a pre-existing coordinate or metric parameter, it interprets time as a canonical ordering relation reconstructed from observer-registered events. Temporal history is thus understood as a chain within an ordered structure generated by reception events, and once such a canonical order has been reconstructed it cannot be retroactively modified. -/- The paper argues that the perceived conflict between these views arises from a conflation of epistemic and ontological levels. COE governs the epistemic alignment of observations, while TGT constrains the ontological structure of reconstructed temporal history. Once these levels are distinguished, the two frameworks become mutually compatible. -/- On this basis the paper introduces a structural principle—the Temporal Reconstruction Constraint—according to which observational reconstruction may refine or extend the accessible event structure but must preserve the canonical order of previously reconstructed history. The result is a layered account of scientific inference in which observational practice, epistemic reconstruction, and temporal ontology play distinct but interrelated roles. -/- This perspective contributes to philosophical debates on the nature of temporal order, the epistemology of scientific observation, and the relation between observational practices and temporal ontology. (shrink)

The Peircean doctrine of signs is incomplete. This paper rethinks the standard model of sign action to provide a common framework for analyzing all the different kinds of semiotic processes, including the workings of thinking creatures, sentient beings, single cell organisms, social systems, and sciences. Through a detailed theoretical analysis, the paper shows how we can separate mediation (featuring the steps: source, mediator, and outcome) from representation (featuring the conventional sign correlates: object, sign, and interpretant) in Peircean semiotics and combine (...) the two to establish a general model of sign action. This leads to the fundamental and, in a Peircean context, somewhat controversial ideas that there are not two but three dynamical sign correlates and, notably, that there is not one direction of mediation in the sign triad, but six directions, which constitute six fundamental types of sign action: perceiving, acting, interpreting, expressing, sensing, and reacting. The sixfold model of sign action is a step toward a general theory of semiosis, it promises to reconcile the split in biosemiotics, and it provides a coherent semiotic foundation for a general theory of observation in science. Chiefly, it offers a workable framework for semiotics. (shrink)

Among much else, Peirce was concerned with understanding the nature of experimentation. And while Peirce scholarship frequently appeals to the role of experimentation in his philosophy, no one has yet provided the account appealed to. This is not because Peirce's understanding of experimentation is too obvious to deserve discussion, nor is it because Peirce was quiet on the subject. Indeed, Peirce attempted to articulate what he meant by an experiment in many ways over the course of decades. But these articulations (...) have received limited attention and have not been brought together with the aim of understanding Peircean experimentation. Notably, two of the key sources—Peirce's writings on Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt and his many drafts of "What Pragmatism Is"—have received little critical engagement. This essay has two aims. The first is to lay out and bring together Peirce's various discussions on the nature of experimentation, providing a sketch of the whole picture. The second is to draw attention to three aspects of this sketch—(1) that experimental inquiry is interest-based, (2) that abduction occurs at key stages throughout, not merely in the production of hypotheses, and (3) that experimental inquiry clarifies and distinguishes two roles for doubt: as a skeptical attitude held towards a hypothesis, and as an uncomfortable state caused by surprise, with only the first sense being crucial. (shrink)

This study aims to establish a formal system grounded in observation, transforming the properties and outcomes of empirical observation into rigorously treatable mathematical structures, thereby constructing a strictly epistemological mathematical framework for physics and the natural sciences. Starting from the indistinguishability inherent in observation, we rigorously demonstrate how the modern mathematical notions of structure and morphism can be employed to represent phenomena as objects within topological spaces; and, by analyzing the relations among observations, how causality and dynamics can be strictly (...) reconstructed as evolution processes centered on observable phenomena. This study reveals that the necessity of mathematics in the natural sciences arises from the fact that mathematical logic itself is the only possible language through which natural phenomena can be coherently described. Accordingly, epistemology is established as the foundational language of the natural sciences, and a complete logical reconstruction of the fundamental concepts of physics is achieved without invoking any ontological assumptions. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel symbolic framework for interpreting arithmetic and geometry through the lens of coherence, modular symmetry, and recursive structure. By redefining zero as a coherent center and π as a recursive gauge, the framework integrates mod9 and mod10 arithmetic to reveal deeper symmetries within classical mathematical systems. Coherence is posited as the variating factor that emrealizes scale-invariant invariants—such as the point-circle duality and the line as a perceived interval on an infinite curve bounded by c/d = π—into (...) experiential forms. This meta-structure bridges the finite and infinite, reinterpreting singularities (e.g., n/0 as π/n) through a symbolic geometry grounded in relational invariants. Drawing inspiration from collaborative inquiries, the framework introduces "emrealization" as the process resolving abstract symmetries into tangible patterns, visualized through rotational and vectorial manifolds. The metaphor of "the symbolic apple that fell from the tree of meaning" encapsulates coherence as a gravitational force, anchoring arithmetic to its invariants much like gravity grounds physical phenomena. Potential applications span mathematical education, symbolic computation, and philosophical exploration of mathematical perception. This work aligns with topology, category theory, and theoretical physics, offering a lens to explore infinity recursively. Future directions include formal proofs, fractal visualizations, and computational implementations. Published under a Creative Commons license, this paper invites further research into the symbiotic interplay of symmetry and coherence. (shrink)

Astrobiology occupies an unusual position within the philosophy of science. Confronted with the n = 1 problem – having only a single example of life to study – it attempts to investigate life beyond Earth while relying entirely on Earth’s biosphere as its reference point, a constraint that creates unique epistemic challenges. Unlike traditional sciences with clear predictive frameworks, astrobiology operates as what we might call a transient science: a discipline functioning without foundational certainties, relying predominantly on abductive reasoning, and (...) confronting hypotheses that may remain untestable for decades. It is, in essence, a science of absence – of evidence, certainty, and analogy – where progress lies in refining conceptual and experimental tools to recognize unfamiliar forms of life. This positions astrobiology alongside emerging fields like artificial intelligence and cognitive science within a broader transformation of how scientific knowledge is constructed when dealing with phenomena that transcend direct empirical access. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of Johannes Swammerdam’s researches on the brain of the honeybee (Apis mellifera), on the basis both of his published texts and of (1) an early, manuscript version of his treatise on bees (broadly intended) (1673), and (2) a hitherto unedited autograph of his, containing the earliest depiction and description of an insect brain (1673–1677). Through a reconstruction of the genesis of Swammerdam’s texts on bees, both the novelty and accuracy of his observations are highlighted, as (...) well as his reliance on a Cartesian physiology in the interpretation and rendering of the observed parts. (shrink)

Neuralink could distribute artificial superintelligence to humans, thus allowing the homosapiens to synchronize the hemispheres of their brains, thereby transcending space-time, and potentially time traveling. While backwards time travel cannot change the past, due to paradoxes, the time traveler would probably share a soul with the alternate timeline self, thus providing closure for regrets, errors, injustice, etc. Plus, if one time travels with AI superintelligence, the time traveler may mend errors with greater ease. -/- Although other potential time travel methods (...) are displayed in the reference section, only the Gateway Process will be observed in this essay. The Gateway Process may allow for backwards time travel, under the rules that time travel cannot change the past, yet by attempting to change the past, new dimensions will be created, thus growing the universe. To determine if the Gateway Process allows for backwards time travel, researchers can use computer brain interface to examine the inside of a subject’s brain and mind. Plus, researchers can also check if the universe has grown after the subject has attempted to alter a past event, theoretically only creating another dimension. Soon technology may detect the exact expansion of the universe. Perhaps scientists can use space tunnels to investigate the possible creation of new dimensions from the Gateway Process backwards time traveling, attempting to alter past events. EXPERIMENT STEPS: 1)Automate the Gateway Process with Neuralink to ease suspected backwards time travel. 2)Connect the subject’s brain and mind to computer brain interface, or more specifically, magnetic resonance imaging, so the suspected time travel is recorded. 3)Build a space tunnel device to determine if the subject is creating new alternate dimensions with the suspected backwards time travel. 4)Stop, review and try again. Space tunnels may further corroborate if more dimensions have been created with the Gateway Process. Since hemisphere synchronization transcends the time-space dimension, effective enough Neuralink devices could allow someone to synchronize brain hemispheres and time travel to the past. Neuralink technology may both allow a deeper meditative state, thus backwards time travel, and computer monitoring of the backwards time travel and alternate dimension creation /universe expansion. At least presumably through scientific studies, each individual has alternate selves throughout alternate timelines thus, each individual(all alternate selves) become one in the afterlife. So backwards time traveling to correct a mistake, injustice, or error, thus creating alternate timelines, out of the past, would not change the original timeline but, would add a deeper satisfaction for the time traveler by sharing a soul with the alternative timeline self. While correcting the error, injustice, or mistake, the time traveler and alternative timeline self may share an individual consciousness. More concretely, quantum entanglement may illustrate how an individual’s selves, across different alternate timelines, share a deeper fundamental self, like a soul. I hereby invite experts in AI, quantum mechanics, and neuroscience to collaborate in adding technical rigor to this preprint. (shrink)

Sellars (1962) contains some of the most important metaphilosophical reflections from the analytic tradition. He insightfully describes the relationship between philosophy and science, by identifying the philosophical task of integrating the manifest image into the scientific image. But while this description is sound, it is importantly incomplete. Here, I first suggest that a more complete picture shows philosophy in “superposition” in relation to science; philosophy occuplies multiple positions in relation to science, owing to the variegated tasks that philosophers pursue. In (...) the final section, we shall see that our catalogue of philosophical tasks provides means for confronting that obstinate question “How is metaphysics possible?”. (shrink)

This paper seeks to extend my recent work on quantum perception (Rosen, 2021) to the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. In the first section, I summarize the earlier work, noting how the conventional approach to observing photons is rooted in an objectivist philosophy that serves as an obstacle to probing the underlying quantum reality. In the summary provided, I bring out the intimate relationship between observer and observed in the quantum world, and the need for a new, proprioceptive mode of observation (...) linked to phenomenological philosophy. The second part of the paper builds on the earlier effort by applying the proprioceptive observation of photons to the phenomenon of entanglement. The basic proposition is that proprioceptive observers of entangled photons may become entangled with each other. I propose an experiment that tests this hypothesis. In concluding, I explore the possibility that a quantum internet of proprioceptively engaged participants could create an ontologically entangled society. (shrink)

The only subtype of epistemic agent currently recognized within scientonomy is community. The place of both individuals and epistemic tools in the scientonomic ontology is yet to be clarified. This paper extends the scientonomic ontology to include epistemic agents and epistemic tools as well as their relationship to one another. Epistemic agent is defined as an agent capable of taking epistemic stances towards epistemic elements. These stances must be taken intentionally, that is, based on a semantic understanding of the epistemic (...) element in question and its available alternatives, with reason, and for the purpose of acquiring knowledge. I argue that there can be both communal and individual epistemic agents. Epistemic agents are linked by relationships of authority delegation based on their differing areas of expertise. Having established the role of epistemic agents in the process of scientific change, I then turn to the role of epistemic tools, such as a thermometer, a text, or a particle accelerator in epistemic activities. I argue that epistemic tools play a different role in scientific change than do epistemic agents. This role is specified by an agent’s employed method. A physical object or system is an epistemic tool for some epistemic agent if there is a procedure by which the tool can provide an acceptable source of knowledge for answering some question under the employed method of the agent. An agent is said to rely on such a tool. (shrink)

Cosmologists take the $\Lambda$CDM model to be a permanent contribution to our knowledge of the universe, based on the success of precision cosmology. Consistent, independent determinations of the parameters in this model encourage physicists to take it seriously. This stance incurs an obligation to resolve any discrepancies by reanalyzing measurements or adding further complexity. Recent observations in cosmology indicate a tension between “local” and “global” determinations of the Hubble constant. Here I argue that this tension illustrates one of the benefits (...) of taking the model seriously and consider the challenges to making a case for the permanence of $\Lambda$CDM. (shrink)

The Argument from Inductive Risk (AIR) is taken to show that values are inevitably involved in making judgements or forming beliefs. After reviewing this conclusion, I pose cases which are prima facie counterexamples: the unreflective application of conventions, use of black-boxed instruments, reliance on opaque algorithms, and unskilled observation reports. These cases are counterexamples to the AIR posed in ethical terms as a matter of personal values. Nevertheless, it need not be understood in those terms. The values which load a (...) theory choice may be those of institutions or past actors. This means that the challenge of responsibly handling inductive risk is not merely an ethical issue, but is also social, political, and historical. (shrink)

Neurath (1932) suggests that in our quest for scientific knowledge “we are like sailors who have to rebuild their ship on the open sea, without ever being able to dismantle it in dry-dock and reconstruct it from its best components”. Neurath's boat features in discussions of various philosophical ideas, including the debate with foundationalism and coherentism about justification, the ethics literature on reflective equilibrium, and naturalistic approaches to metaphilosophy.

Abstraction and generalization are two processes of reasoning that have a special role in the construction of scientific theories and models. They have been important parts of the scientific method ever since the nineteenth century. A philosophical and historical analysis of scientific practices shows how abstraction and generalization found their way into the theory of the logic of science of the nineteenth-century philosopher Charles S. Peirce. Our case studies include the scientific practices of Francis Galton and John Herschel, who introduced (...) composite photographs and graphical methods, respectively, as technologies of generalization and thereby influenced Peirce’s logic of abstraction. Herschel’s account of generalization is further supported by William Whewell, who was very influential on Peirce. By connecting Herschel’s scientific technology of abstraction to Peirce’s logical technology of abstraction—namely, diagrams—we highlight the role of judgments in scientific observation by hypostatic abstractions. We also relate Herschel’s discovery-driven logic of science and Peirce’s open-ended diagrammatic logic to the use of models in science. Ultimately, Peirce’s theory of abstraction is a case of showing how logic applies to reality. (shrink)

Bas van Fraassen maintains that the actual function of optical instruments is producing images. Still, the output of a telescope is different from that of a microscope, for in the latter case it is not possible to empirically investigate the geometrical relations between the observer, the image and the detected entity, while in the former it is - at least in principle. In this paper I argue that this is a weak argument to support the belief in the existence of (...) exoplanets that, according to van Fraassen, comes with accepting a theory that posits these entities. If a constructive empiricist asserts the empirical adequacy of such a theory, she might be relying on typical realist arguments, instead - of the very same ilk as the ones used to defend the veridicality of microscopic images. Perhaps the time has come for van Fraassen to explain his view on telescopes. (shrink)

Despite the logical possibility and alleged existence of inconsistent empirical theories, the problem of their testability remains largely unexplored. I develop a testability criterion which makes some of these theories testable, including some observationally inconsistent ones. However, they are not rejectable qua inconsistent by this criterion. These results, while opening the domain of scientific theories to inconsistent ones, challenge the prospects of dialetheism in the philosophy of science.

‘Visualisations play an important role in science’, this seems to be an uncontroversial statement today. Scientists not only use visual representations as means to communicate their research results in publications or talks, but also often as surrogates for their objects of interest during the process of research. Thus, we can make a distinction between two contexts of usage here, namely the explanatory and the exploratory context. The focus of this paper is on the latter one. Obviously, using visualisations as surrogates (...) for their objects of depiction presupposes the assumption that the former can tell us something relevant about the latter. Thus, a particular referential relation between object and image has to be assumed that can transfer the relevant information. Furthermore, as science is a collaborative enterprise – a social activity – this information has to be intersubjectively accessible and stable. Nonetheless, philosophers of science still quarrel about the epistemic and ontological status of such visualisations. After all, they are means to visualise theoretical entities, such as the Higgs Boson, i.e. entities that are principally not observable with the unaided eye. Especially the significant reliance on information technology devices to access this world of the unobservable provokes a lot of suspicion with regard to the referential status of such visualisations. In this sense, quite a few philosophers adopt social constructivism as an explanatory hypothesis. A particular image is constructed with the aid of instruments and theoretical assumptions; hence it does not refer to an entity outside this system. In this paper, I will critically analyse this assumption and try to argue for an alternative point of view. (shrink)

Revue de l'ouvrage "l'observation scientifique" de Vincent Israël-Jost. -/- Review of the book "l'observation scientifique" of Vincent Israël-Jost.

There is something important about the way human primates use touch in social encounters; for example, consider greetings in airports (hugs vs. handshakes) and the way children push each other in a playground (a quick push to warn, a really hard one when it is serious!). Human primates use touch as a way of conveying a wide range of social information. In this chapter I will argue that one of the best ways of understanding social cognition in non-human primates is (...) through touch. Moreover, I will argue that if we would like to describe the evolutionary history of social cognition, touch is one of the ideal modes to operationalize social interaction across different kinds of primates. (shrink)

All methodologies used to characterize mother-infant interaction in non-human primates includes mother, infant, and other social factors. The chief difference is their understanding of how this interaction takes place. Using chimpanzees as a model, I will compare the different methodologies used to describe mother-infant interaction and show how implicit notions of communication and social interaction shape descriptions of this kind of interaction. I will examine the limitations and advantages of different approaches used in mother-infant studies and I will sketch an (...) alternative approach to studying mother-infant interaction in non-human primates that adopts Jerome Bruner’s developmental studies on human infant communication. (shrink)

In his last book (2008), Bas van Fraassen, the originator of constructive empiricism, put forward a table containing a categorization of images. His aim, however, was to discuss the reality of what they represent and not addressing the issue of images per se. One of the consequences is that it remained an open question what ‘public hallucinations’ - reflections in the water, rainbows and the like - are. In this paper it will be defended that only images in the relevant (...) (representational) sense should be considered as such. For this and other reasons, van Fraassen’s diagram should be amended. Moreover, as Physics teaches us, the class of the so-called ‘images’ that are actually objects is wider than van Fraassen reckons. The set of the observable objects do not contain only concrete things, but goes beyond what ‘common sense realism’ suggests. In addition to rocks, oceans and bicycles, we can also see rainbows, reflections in the water and the like. (shrink)

In his famous book "Seeing Dark Things: The Philosophy of Shadows" (2008), Roy Sorensen put forward a ‘blocking theory of shadows’, a causal view on these entities according to which a shadow is an absence of light caused by blockage. This approach allows him to solve a quite famous riddle on shadows, ‘the Yale puzzle’, that was devised by Robert Fogelin in the late 1960s and that Sorensen presents in the form mentioned by Bas van Fraassen (1989). István Aranyosi has (...) recently criticized Sorensen’s solution to the Yale puzzle, on the grounds that it does not resist another version of the riddle, that Aranyosi calls ‘the Bilkent puzzle’. A new perspective on shadows, the ‘Material Exstitution View’, that allegedly permits to solve both puzzles, could be adopted as an alternative. In this paper I will show that Sorensen’s blockage theory can actually handle both the Yale and the Bilkent puzzle, plus another one that I put forward (‘the donut puzzle’), which instead is fatal to Aranyosi’s position. As Sorensen puts it, nothing aside from the original blockage of light is needed. (shrink)

According to Roy Sorensen, when one looks at the Moon, during a solar eclipse, what she sees is its inner part of the farther, reflective one, and not the always-facing-Earth side of our natural satellite. To make his point clearer, he put forward the famous example of a double eclipse involving the fictional planets Far and Near. From the observer’s vantage point, the two planets have the same apparent diameter and overlap. What the agent sees is a dark disk, but (...) believes that what she is seeing is Near, because Far is behind it. Sorensen claims that what she actually sees is planet Far and that the causal theory of perception explains why this is the case. Of course, this position stands against common sense. Sorensen shows that it counters Alvin Goldman’s renowned observation criteria too. Nonetheless, he maintains, since Near is causally idle and the agent does see something, the only possible conclusion is that she sees Far, pace Goldman – and common sense. In this paper, I try to demonstrate that Sorensen is wrong and that the correct solution to the eclipse riddle is that the observer sees Near. As a matter of fact, besides meeting common sense and Goldman’s observability criteria, Near can be legitimately be considered the object of a successful perceptual discrimination even in the light of the causal theory of perception. (shrink)

Questions have been raised on what role the knowledge provided by sustainability science actually plays in the transition to sustainability and what role it may play in the future. In this paper we investigate different approaches to sustainability transformation of food systems by analyzing the rationale behind transformative acts — the ground that the direct agents of change act upon — and how the type of rationale is connected to the role of research and how the agents of change are (...) involved. To do this we employ Max Weber’s distinction between instrumental rationality and value-rationality in social action. In particular, we compare two different approaches to the role of research in sustainability transformation: (1) Performance-based approaches that measure performance and set up sustainability indicator targets and benchmarks to motivate the agents in the food system to change; (2) Values-based approaches that aim at communicating and mediating sustainability values to enable coordinated and cooperative action to transform the food system. We identify their respective strengths and weaknesses based on a cross-case analysis of four cases, and propose that the two approaches, like Weber’s two types of rationality, are complementary — because they are based on complementary observer stances — and that an optimal in-between approach therefore cannot be found. However, there are options for reflexive learning by observing one perspective — and its possible blind spots — from the vantage point of the other, so we suggest that new strategies for sustainability transformation can be found based on reflexive rationality as a third and distinct type of rationality. (shrink)

Among philosophical analyses of Darwin’s Origin, a standard view says the theory presented there had no concrete observational consequences against which it might be checked. I challenge this idea with a new analysis of Darwin’s principal geographical distribution observations and how they connect to his common ancestry hypothesis.

Sustainability assessments bring together different perspectives that pertain to sustainability in order to produce overall assessments and a wealth of approaches and tools have been developed in the past decades. But two major problematics remain. The problem of integration concerns the surplus of possibilities for integration; different tools produce different assessments. The problem of implementation concerns the barrier between assessment and transformation; assessments do not lead to the expected changes in practice. This paper aims to analyze issues of complementarity in (...) sustainability assessment and transformation as a key to better handling the problems of integration and implementation. Based on a generalization of Niels Bohr’s complementarity from quantum mechanics, we have identified two forms of complementarity in sustainability assessment, observer stance complementarity and value complementarity. Unlike many other problems of sustainability assessment, complementarity is of a fundamental character connected to the very conditions for observation. Therefore complementarity cannot be overcome methodologically; only handled better or worse. Science is essential to the societal goal of sustainability, but these issues of complementarity impede the constructive role of science in the transition to more sustainable structures and practices in food systems. The agencies of sustainability assessment and transformation need to be acutely aware of the importance of different perspectives and values and the complementarities that may be connected to these differences. An improved understanding of complementarity can help to better recognize and handle issues of complementarity. These deliberations have relevance not only for sustainability assessment, but more generally for transdisciplinary research on wicked problems. (shrink)

I outline a pragmatic view of scientists' use of observation which draws attention to non-discursive, instrumental and social contexts of observation, in order to explain scientists' agreement about the appearance and significance of new phenomena. I argue that: observation is embedded in a network of activities, techniques, and interests; that experimentalists make construals of new phenomena which enable them communicate exploratory techniques and their outcomes, and that empirical enquiry consists of communicative, exploratory and predictive strategies whose interdependence ensures that, notwithstanding (...) the constructedness of representations and the empirical underdetermination of theories, observations contain information about the natural world. (shrink)

For much of the last forty years, certain shared epistemological concerns have guided research in both the history and the philosophy of science: the testing of theory (including the replication of experiments), the assessment of evidence, the bearing of theoretical and metaphysical assumptions on the reality of scientific objects, and, above all, the interaction of subjective and objective factors in scientific inquiry. This essay proposes a turn toward ontology—more specifically, toward the ontologies created and sustained by scientific observation. Such a (...) shift in focus would invite a rethinking of the neo‐Kantian distinctions (along with their characteristic metaphors, such as “lenses,” “filters,” and “perspectives”) that have, implicitly or explicitly, informed much of late twentieth‐century history and philosophy of science. In particular, the current gap between psychology and epistemology might be bridged, if the psychology in question were collective rather than individual and the epistemology oriented toward discovery rather than warranting and testing. (shrink)

The 1919 eclipse expedition’s confirmation of general relativity is often celebrated as a triumph of scientific internationalism. However, British scientific opinion during World War I leaned toward the permanent severance of intellectual ties with Germany. That the expedition came to be remembered as a progressive moment of internationalism was largely the result of the efforts of A. S. Eddington. A devout Quaker, Eddington imported into the scientific community the strategies being used by his coreligionists in the national dialogue: humanize the (...) enemy through personal contact and dramatic projects that highlight the value of peace and cooperation. The essay also addresses the common misconception that Eddington’s sympathy for Einstein led him intentionally to misinterpret the expedition’s results. The evidence gives no reason to think that Eddington or his coworkers were anything but rigorous. Eddington’s pacifism is reflected not in manipulated data but in the meaning of the expedition and the way it entered the collective memory as a celebration of international cooperation in the wake of war. Science is above all politics. —Sir Oliver Lodge (1914) Is it not an actual fact that babies have been killed in ways almost inconceivably brutal, and not as a mere individual excess, but as a part of the deliberate and declared policy of the German army? … Is it not a fact that German men of science have gone out of their way to declare their adhesion to these things? —“From an Oxford Note‐Book,” Observatory (1916). (shrink)

During the late nineteenth century, scientists around the world disagreed as to the types of instruments and methods that should be used for determining the most important constant of celestial mechanics: the solar parallax. Venus’s 1874 transit across the sun was seen as the best opportunity for ending decades of debate. However, a mysterious “black drop” that appeared between Venus and the sun and individual differences in observations of the phenomenon brought traditional methods into disrepute. To combat these difficulties, the (...) astronomer Jules Janssen devised a controversial new instrument, the “photographic revolver,” that photographed Venus at regular intervals. Another solution came from physicists, who rivaled the astronomers’ dominance in precision measurements by deducing the solar parallax from physical measurements of the speed of light. Yet other astronomers relied on drawings and well‐trained observers. The new space emerging from this debate was characterized by a decline in faith in photography and in geometry and by the growing realization of the importance of alternative elements needed for establishing scientific truths: power and authority, skill and discipline, standardization, mechanical reproducibility, and theatricality. By examining the “cinematographic turn” in science and its alternatives, this essay brings to light unexplored multidisciplinary connections that contribute to the histories of psychology, philosophy, physics, and film studies. (shrink)

23 pages, no figure. Proceedings of "Philosophical Aspects of Modern Cosmology" held in Granada, Spain, 22-23 Sept. 2011. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics ; doi:10.1016/j.shpsb.2013.02.002.

Carl Hempel introduced what he called "Craig's theorem" into the philosophy of science in a famous discussion of the "problem of theoretical terms." Beginning with Hempel's use of 'Craig's theorem," I shall bring out some of the key differences between Hempel's treatment of the "problem of theoretical terms" and Carnap's in order to illuminate the peculiar function of Wissenschaftslogik in Carnap's mature philosophy. Carnap's treatment, in particular, is fundamentally antimetaphysical—he aims to use the tools of mathematical logic to dissolve rather (...) solve traditional philosophical problems—and it is precisely this point that is missed by his logically-minded contemporaries such as Hempel and Quine. (shrink)

In this article, we will defend an epistemological claim: that observation is mathematically-laden. A well-known thesis in the philosophy of science is that observation is theory-laden. The claim that observation is mathematically laden can be partially seen as an analogous argument. The first part of the paper focuses on the definition of mathematically-ladeness and its relations to the best-known problem of theory-ladeness. The second part of the paper presents some explicit examples and outlines the consequences and the difficulties of this (...) epistemological limit. Finally a specific context for this problem is discussed in details: we will analyze the question of deterministic chaos as a paradigmatic example of mathematically-ladeness and shows that the deterministic or indeterministic nature of chaos is strongly linked to the choice of a particular mathematical description. (shrink)