Introduction 1. The Four-Dimensional Picture 2. Against Presentism 3. Three- and Four-Dimensionalism Stated 4. In Favor of Four-Dimensionalism Part 1 5. In Favor of Four-Dimensionalism Part 2: The Best Unified Theory of the Paradoxes of Coincidence 6. Arguments against Four-Dimensionalism Bibliography, Index

Putnam’s paradox

Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time

Consider a circle and a pair of its semicircles. Which is prior, the whole or its parts? Are the semicircles dependent abstractions from their whole, or is the circle a derivative construction from its parts? Now in place of the circle consider the entire cosmos (the ultimate concrete whole), and in place of the pair of semicircles consider themyriad particles (the ultimate concrete parts).Which if either is ultimately prior, the one ultimate whole or its many ultimate parts? The monist holds that the whole is prior to its parts, and thus views the cosmos as fundamental, with metaphysical explanation dangling downward from the One. The pluralist holds that the parts are prior to their whole, and thus tends to consider particles fundamental, with

http://www.jonathanschaffer.org/monism.pdf

Monism: The Priority of the Whole

My title refers to Richard Levins’ famous paper on models in population biology (1966). Here Levins presented his three-way distinction between kinds of modelbuilding, and also introduced a set of more fundamental ideas about trade-offs that constrain and guide scientific work. For Levins, these trade-offs derive from the relationships between three different theoretical goals: realism, precision, and generality. The talk of ‘‘strategies’’ within Levins’ paper concerns alternative strategies within the enterprise of model-building. My topic here is broader; I will treat models and model-building as characteristic of one particular approach to theorizing, a strategy of model-based science. The ideas presented here are indebted to Michael Weisberg’s work (forthcoming, 2003), and to discussions with him at Stanford. They are also indebted to a scattered tradition of other philosophical and scientific work, especially by Levins, Giere, and Wimsatt. The aim of the paper is to give a general sketch of model-based science as I see it, but a sketch focusing particularly on divergences between myself and those on whose work I draw. The term ‘‘model’’ is surely one of the most contested in all of philosophy of science. What sense of the term do I have in mind? My starting point is the account given by Giere (1988). For Giere, models are idealized structures that we use to

background

https://www.petergodfreysmith.com/PGS-StrategyMBS-06.pdf

The strategy of model-based science

Adaptationism is a research strategy that seeks to identify adaptations and the specific selective forces that drove their evolution in past environments. Since the mid-1970s, paleontologist Stephen J. Gould and geneticist Richard Lewontin have been critical of adaptationism, especially as applied toward understanding human behavior and cognition. Perhaps the most prominent criticism they made was that adaptationist explanations were analogous to Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories (outlandish explanations for questions such as how the elephant got its trunk). Since storytelling (through the generation of hypotheses and the making of inferences) is an inherent part of science, the criticism refers to the acceptance of stories without sufficient empirical evidence. In particular, Gould, Lewontin, and their colleagues argue that adaptationists often use inappropriate evidentiary standards for identifying adaptations and their functions, and that they often fail to consider alternative hypotheses to adaptation. Playing prominently in both of these criticisms are the concepts of constraint, spandrel, and exaptation. In this article we discuss the standards of evidence that could be used to identify adaptations and when and how they may be appropriately used. Moreover, building an empirical case that certain features of a trait are best explained by exaptation, spandrel, or constraint requires demonstrating that the trait's features cannot be better accounted for by adaptationist hypotheses. Thus, we argue that the testing of alternatives requires the consideration, testing, and systematic rejection of adaptationist hypotheses. Where possible, we illustrate our points with examples taken from human behavior and cognition.

Adaptationism--how to carry out an exaptationist program.

Intuitively, Gettier cases are instances of justified true beliefsthat are not cases of knowledge Should we therefore conclude thatknowledge is not justified true belief? Only if we have reason totrust intuition here But intuitions are unreliable in a wide rangeof cases And it can be argued that the Gettier intuitions have agreater resemblance to unreliable intuitions than to reliableintuitions What’s distinctive about the faulty intuitions, Iargue, is that respecting them would mean abandoning a simple,systematic and largely successful theory in favour of a complicated,disjunctive and idiosyncratic theory So maybe respecting theGettier intuitions was the wrong reaction, we should instead havebeen explaining why we are all so easily misled by these kinds ofcases

Putnam’s paradox

Citations

Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time

Monism: The Priority of the Whole

The strategy of model-based science

Adaptationism--how to carry out an exaptationist program.

What good are counterexamples

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