Paul Needham - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Paul Needham

Macroscopic Metaphysics, 2017

An important feature of the transition from ancient to modern views of matter is the recognition ... more An important feature of the transition from ancient to modern views of matter is the recognition of the distinction between substance and phase, and the realisation that a substance like water is not necessarily liquid, as Aristotle thought, but the same substance might be solid or gas too. This chapter reviews just how surprisingly tenacious the older view was, noting that even Lavoiser had difficulty abandoning it completely although he prepared the ground for doing so. The distinction was clear enough throughout most of the nineteenth century, but received its definitive formulation in Gibbs’ phase rule, which he presented in connection with his formulation of chemical thermodynamics in the late 1870s. The import of this fundamental principle of chemistry is discussed and illustrated in the final sections.

Synthese Library, 2020

The chapter begins with some bibliographical notes and an outline of the principal themes in Duhe... more The chapter begins with some bibliographical notes and an outline of the principal themes in Duhem’s philosophical view, which are then taken up in more detail. The historical thesis of the importance of medieval science for what was to come in the seventeenth century is discussed in Sect. 6.3, laying the foundation for his understanding of the continuity of scientific progress. The next section takes up the critique of the idea of decisive falsification and the holism for which Duhem is primarily known. This is followed by a development of the theme in Quinean spirit, questioning Duhem’s rigid stand on the status of definitions. Then we turn to the role of precision in understanding the import of scientific claims, understood as the detailed accommodation of systematic error and concise specification of remaining margins of error. This is deployed to counter Feyerabend’s thesis of meaning variance and provide an appropriate contrast with vague claims. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Duhem’s antireductionist conception of the unity of science and some of the difficulties which it raises.

The chapter advocates a view of the progress of science as the acquisition of knowledge—knowledge... more The chapter advocates a view of the progress of science as the acquisition of knowledge—knowledge of the world as the literal understanding (with some qualification) of contemporary scientific theory would have it. This is challenged by antirealists, who accept this claim only for knowledge of what they count as observable, which they distinguish from the theoretical representation afforded by science and which they maintain we are not justified in holding as a literally true representation of how the world really is. The antirealist challenge is met by a moderate realism, which rebuts the anitirealist arguments of Laudan’s pessimistic induction, Kuhn’s argument from the putative incommensurability of successive theories and Bas van Fraassen’s argument from the so-called underdetermination of theory, but without resorting to the miracle argument or the strategy of inference to the best explanation on which it relies, which are also rejected. It is not necessary to accept the more ex...

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 2015

The idea that the extension of a chemical substance is fixed by determining what stands in the re... more The idea that the extension of a chemical substance is fixed by determining what stands in the relation of being the same substance to a paradigm sample plays a substantial role in chemistry, and procedures of identification that don’t make direct use of the method can be traced back to ones that do. But paradigm samples are not typically selected by ostension, as in Putnam’s version of this procedure. The relevance of ostension is questioned after a discussion of the establishment of paradigm specimens in the analysis of some contents of crude oil and an examination of the general features of the same-substance relation that takes into account the temporal dependency and the consequent role of characteristic features of substances. 1. Introduction2. Some Formal Properties of the Same-Substance Relation3. Characteristic Properties and Paradigm Samples4. Naming Substances Old and New5. Some Points of Comparison with Temperature6. Summary and Conclusion Introduction Some Formal Properties of the Same-Substance Relation Characteristic Properties and Paradigm Samples Naming Substances Old and New Some Points of Comparison with Temperature Summary and Conclusion

Quine has instilled new life into the old discussion of observation sentences since he took up th... more Quine has instilled new life into the old discussion of observation sentences since he took up the topic at the end of the 50s, though he has wavered on their import. A physical element concerned with the homology of sensory receptors which figured in earlier accounts has now been dropped (1996, pp. 160-1). In Word and Object he spoke of degrees of observationality with theory and collateral information diluting the pure observation sentences (pp. 42-4). Later, he tells us, I held observationality as absolute, based on immediacy of assent, and then I accommodated the intrusion of theory by contrasting the holophrastic conditioning of the observation sentence to neural intake with the analytic relations of the component words to the rest of language. The sentence figures holophrastically both in the infant's first acquisition of it and in the scientist's immediate assent to it when testing a theory. (1996, p. 162) An observation sentence understood as of 1996 is simply an occasion sentence that commands the subject's immediate assent, however fallible and revisable. Fallibility is then accommodated in a separate dimension, theoreticity, which invests observation sentences in varying degrees. (loc. cit.) His view now squares quite nicely with that propounded just over 100 years ago by Duhem before the logical positivists introduced their notion of observation sentence which has notoriously gained all the bad press. Duhem describes how the scientist reconciles himself to the fallibility of first impressions by adopting the critical attitude afforded by his analysis of ordinary observation: brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk

... Temporal perspective: A logical analysis of temporal reference in English. Post a Comment. CO... more ... Temporal perspective: A logical analysis of temporal reference in English. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Needham, Paul (b. 1948, d. ----. PUBLISHER: Philosophical Society : Dept. of Philosophy, University of Uppsala (Uppsala). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1975. ...

Mereological Structure in Chemical Substances and Their Transformations : An Analytic Perspective... more Mereological Structure in Chemical Substances and Their Transformations : An Analytic Perspective on the Historical Development of These Concepts

An assessment of the similarities and differences between space and time has played an important ... more An assessment of the similarities and differences between space and time has played an important part in the development of the views of a number of philosophers about time. Examples of statements about time are compared with allegedly corresponding statements about space to give us analogies and disanalogies according to whether the statements have the same or different truth values. But now what are the general principles on which such comparisons are based? In particular, according to what criteria are corresponding sentences paired off? Are there any such general criteria? And if so, do they already presuppose a substantial commitment to one or other of the points of view at issue where analogies and disanalogies are discussed? This paper is concerned with two specific proposals for criteria of correspondence, one which is rejected and the other tentatively advanced in its place. The exchange between Richard Gale (1968, 1969) and James Garson (1969) resulted in a formulation of ...

Macroscopic Metaphysics

With the background provided by the previous chapters, the dyadic predicate “water” is discussed ... more With the background provided by the previous chapters, the dyadic predicate “water” is discussed in some detail in this chapter as illustrative of substance predicates. The familiar claim “Water is H2O” cannot be construed as a claim about the constitution of water at the microlevel, but is a purely macroscopic claim about what chemists call the composition of water. Relating the macroscopic term “water” to microscopic constitution must take cognizance of the fact that the situation is a dynamic one, not a fixed, unchanging structure. The continual restructuring renders macroscopic quantities effectively homogeneous for macroscopic times, say of the order of a millionth of a second or longer. (Spectroscopists describe the structure accessible over shorter times via higher frequency radiation as indiscernible—blurred—over the longer times probed by lower frequency radiation.) What should we say about extremely small parts of a quantity of water for extremely short subintervals of a time?

Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science

Chemists in the late nineteenth century were apt to distinguish the theory of chemical structure ... more Chemists in the late nineteenth century were apt to distinguish the theory of chemical structure they advocated as chemical, as opposed to physical, atomism. The failure on Duhem’s part to consider any such distinction in his critique of atomism might be taken to be a lacuna in his argument. Far from being a weakness in his stance, however, I argue that he had good systematic reasons for not taking such a distinction seriously.

Getting to Know the World Scientifically

History of Philosophy and Logical Analysis

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