Phenomenology originated as a novel way of doing philosophy early in the twentieth
century. In the writings of Husserl and Heidegger, regarded as its founders, it was a non …

Models are of central importance in many scientific contexts. The centrality of models such
as inflationary models in cosmology, general-circulation models of the global climate, the …

What is the correct concept behind measures of inflation? Does money cause business
activity or is it the other way around? Shall we stimulate growth by raising aggregate …

In this paper, I propose that the debate in epistemology concerning the nature and value of
understanding can shed light on the role of scientific idealizations in producing scientific …

During the 20th century, population ecology and science in general relied on two very
different statistical paradigms to solve its inferential problems: error statistics (also referred to …

Models and theories are of central importance in science, and scientists spend substantial
amounts of time building, testing, comparing and revising models and theories. It is therefore …

We live in a complex and unpredictable world. However, from its very beginning our
civilization has been striving for certainty. The quest for being sure of how the world works …

Conservative Reductionism sets out a new theory of the relationship between physics and
the special sciences within the framework of functionalism. It argues that it is wrong-headed …

Scientific realism is a doctrine that was both in and out of fashion several times during the
twentieth century. I begin by noting three presuppositions of a succinct characterization of …

Particle physics studies highly complex processes which cannot be directly observed.
Scientific realism claims that we are nevertheless warranted in believing that these …