Mark Risjord
Biographic Data
| ID | 214160 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mark Risjord |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mark |
| FAMILY NAME | Risjord |
| SIGNATURE | RISJORD M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Emory University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2129-2009 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 133 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Thick Concepts and Impartiality
Thick concepts have both descriptive and evaluative dimensions to their meaning. Some have argued that because the descriptive and evaluative dimensions cannot be separated (they are “blended”), the implicit values influence the confirmation of any “mixed claims” containing the thick concept. Using the development of the concept of hypersegregation as a case study, we argue for a distinction between the semantic function of definitions and the ep…
Scientific Representation
This essay presents a fully inferentialist-expressivist account of scientific representation. In general, inferentialist approaches to scientific representation argue that the capacity of a model to represent a target system depends on inferences from models to target systems (surrogative inference). Inferentialism is attractive because it makes the epistemic function of models central to their representational capacity. Prior inferentialist appr…
Philosophy of Social Science
Philosophy of Social Science: A Contemporary Introduction examines perennial questions of philosophy through engaging the empirical study of society. Questions of normativity concern the place of values in social scientific inquiry. Questions of naturalism concern the relationship between the natural and the social sciences. And questions of reductionism ask how social institutions relate to the people who constitute them. This accessible text of…
Language, Truth, and Pedagogy
Early in the planning the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative, we realized that the encounter between Buddhism and contemporary science demanded that Buddhist logic and epistemology encounter Anglophone philosophy of science. A titanic clash of world views was anticipated, but as we began the conversation, we found something different. Many philosophical concerns were shared, but these problems were understood differently. While fundamental elements o…
Inference, explanation, and asymmetry
Anthropology without Belief
Rejecting the category of belief is one of the most striking and profound ideas to emerge from the ontological turn. This essay will argue that the rejection of belief is best understood as part of a broader rejection of representationalism. Representationalism regards thought, speech, and intentionality as depending primarily on the mind’s ability to manipulate beliefs, ideas, meanings, or similar contents. Some central strands of the ontologica…
Normativity and Naturalism in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences
Normativity is one of the keywords of contemporary philosophical discussions Are the philosophers who argue for the irreducible role of normativity within accounts for human societies obliged to assume, as Stephen Turner has recently put it, the existence of a 'non-natural, non-empirical stuff that is claimed to be necessarily, intrinsically there and to in some sense account for the actual'? In this paper I argue that though paying due attention…
Philosophy of Social Science
The Philosophy of Social Science: A Contemporary Introduction examines the perennial questions of philosophy by engaging with the empirical study of society. The book offers a comprehensive overview of debates in the field, with special attention to questions arising from new research programs in the social sciences. The text uses detailed examples of social scientific research to motivate and illustrate the philosophical discussion. Topics inclu…
Relativism and the Ontological Turn within Anthropology
The "ontological turn" is a recent movement within cultural anthropology. Its proponents want to move beyond a representationalist framework, where cultures are treated as systems of belief (concepts, etc.) that provide different perspectives on a single world. Authors who write in this vein move from talk of many cultures to many "worlds," thus appearing to affirm a form of relativism. We argue that, unlike earlier forms of relativism, the ontol…
Ethnography and culture
Delayed preconditioning-mimetic actions of exercise or nitroglycerin do not affect haemodynamics and exercise performance in trained or sedentary individuals
Scientific Change as Political Action
A theory is value-neutral when no constitutive values are part of its content. Nonneutral theories seem to lack objectivity because it is not clear how the constitutive values could be empirically confirmed. This article analyzes Franz Boas’s famous arguments against nineteenth-century evolutionary anthropology and racial theory. While he recognized that talk of “higher civilizations” encoded a constitutive, political value with consequences for …
Reasons, Causes, and Action Explanation
To explain an intentional action one must exhibit the agent’s reasons. Donald Davidson famously argued that the only clear way to understand action explanation is to hold that reasons are causes. Davidson’s discussion conflated two issues: whether reasons are causes and whether reasons causally explain intentional action. Contemporary work on explanation and normativity help disentangle these issues and ground an argument that intentional action …
When IRBs Disagree
Adolescents have unique health risks, and adolescent health is an important area of research, but one that raises notoriously difficult questions about informed consent. Adolescents' developing ability to understand the goals and risks of research motivate the requirement that adolescent participants assent to taking part in studies. Concurrent parental consent is normally required as a proxy for fully informed consent because of the wide variati…
Methodological Triangulation in Nursing Research
Methodological triangulation is the use of more than one method to investigate a phenomenon. Nurse researchers investigate health phenomena using methods drawn from the natural and social sciences. The methodological debate concerns the possibility of confirming a single theory with different kinds of methods. The nursing debate parallels the philosophical debate about how the natural and social sciences are related. This article critiques the pr…
Woodcutters and Witchcraft
The Philosophical Roots of Anthropology
The Philosophical Roots of Anthropology. William Y. Adams. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, 1998. vii. 466 pp., bibliography, index
No Strings Attached
Functional explanation in the social sciences is the focal point for conflict between individualistic and social modes of explanation. While the agent thought she was acting for reasons, the functional explanation seems to reveal the hidden strings of the puppet master. This essay argues that the conflict is merely apparent. The erotetic model of explanation is used to analyze the forms of intentional action and functional explanations. Two expla…
Norms and explanation in the social sciences
Metaphysics, method, and the exact sciences
Further reflections on the sensible foundation
The sensible foundation for mathematics
Relativism and the Ontological Turn within Anthropology
The "ontological turn" is a recent movement within cultural anthropology. Its proponents want to move beyond a representationalist framework, where cultures are treated as systems of belief (concepts, etc.) that provide different perspectives on a single world. Authors who write in this vein move from talk of many cultures to many "worlds," thus appearing to affirm a form of relativism. We argue that, unlike earlier forms of relativism, the ontol…
Philosophy of Social Science
The Philosophy of Social Science: A Contemporary Introduction examines the perennial questions of philosophy by engaging with the empirical study of society. The book offers a comprehensive overview of debates in the field, with special attention to questions arising from new research programs in the social sciences. The text uses detailed examples of social scientific research to motivate and illustrate the philosophical discussion. Topics inclu…
Anthropology without Belief
Rejecting the category of belief is one of the most striking and profound ideas to emerge from the ontological turn. This essay will argue that the rejection of belief is best understood as part of a broader rejection of representationalism. Representationalism regards thought, speech, and intentionality as depending primarily on the mind’s ability to manipulate beliefs, ideas, meanings, or similar contents. Some central strands of the ontologica…
Methodological Triangulation in Nursing Research
Methodological triangulation is the use of more than one method to investigate a phenomenon. Nurse researchers investigate health phenomena using methods drawn from the natural and social sciences. The methodological debate concerns the possibility of confirming a single theory with different kinds of methods. The nursing debate parallels the philosophical debate about how the natural and social sciences are related. This article critiques the pr…
Reasons, Causes, and Action Explanation
To explain an intentional action one must exhibit the agent’s reasons. Donald Davidson famously argued that the only clear way to understand action explanation is to hold that reasons are causes. Davidson’s discussion conflated two issues: whether reasons are causes and whether reasons causally explain intentional action. Contemporary work on explanation and normativity help disentangle these issues and ground an argument that intentional action …
Normativity and Naturalism in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences
Normativity is one of the keywords of contemporary philosophical discussions Are the philosophers who argue for the irreducible role of normativity within accounts for human societies obliged to assume, as Stephen Turner has recently put it, the existence of a 'non-natural, non-empirical stuff that is claimed to be necessarily, intrinsically there and to in some sense account for the actual'? In this paper I argue that though paying due attention…
Inference, explanation, and asymmetry
The Philosophical Roots of Anthropology
The Philosophical Roots of Anthropology. William Y. Adams. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, 1998. vii. 466 pp., bibliography, index
Norms and explanation in the social sciences
The sensible foundation for mathematics
No Strings Attached
Functional explanation in the social sciences is the focal point for conflict between individualistic and social modes of explanation. While the agent thought she was acting for reasons, the functional explanation seems to reveal the hidden strings of the puppet master. This essay argues that the conflict is merely apparent. The erotetic model of explanation is used to analyze the forms of intentional action and functional explanations. Two expla…
Scientific Change as Political Action
A theory is value-neutral when no constitutive values are part of its content. Nonneutral theories seem to lack objectivity because it is not clear how the constitutive values could be empirically confirmed. This article analyzes Franz Boas’s famous arguments against nineteenth-century evolutionary anthropology and racial theory. While he recognized that talk of “higher civilizations” encoded a constitutive, political value with consequences for …
The sensible foundation for mathematics
Further reflections on the sensible foundation
Metaphysics, method, and the exact sciences
Norms and explanation in the social sciences
No Strings Attached
Functional explanation in the social sciences is the focal point for conflict between individualistic and social modes of explanation. While the agent thought she was acting for reasons, the functional explanation seems to reveal the hidden strings of the puppet master. This essay argues that the conflict is merely apparent. The erotetic model of explanation is used to analyze the forms of intentional action and functional explanations. Two expla…
Woodcutters and Witchcraft
The Philosophical Roots of Anthropology
The Philosophical Roots of Anthropology. William Y. Adams. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, 1998. vii. 466 pp., bibliography, index
Methodological Triangulation in Nursing Research
Methodological triangulation is the use of more than one method to investigate a phenomenon. Nurse researchers investigate health phenomena using methods drawn from the natural and social sciences. The methodological debate concerns the possibility of confirming a single theory with different kinds of methods. The nursing debate parallels the philosophical debate about how the natural and social sciences are related. This article critiques the pr…
When IRBs Disagree
Adolescents have unique health risks, and adolescent health is an important area of research, but one that raises notoriously difficult questions about informed consent. Adolescents' developing ability to understand the goals and risks of research motivate the requirement that adolescent participants assent to taking part in studies. Concurrent parental consent is normally required as a proxy for fully informed consent because of the wide variati…
Reasons, Causes, and Action Explanation
To explain an intentional action one must exhibit the agent’s reasons. Donald Davidson famously argued that the only clear way to understand action explanation is to hold that reasons are causes. Davidson’s discussion conflated two issues: whether reasons are causes and whether reasons causally explain intentional action. Contemporary work on explanation and normativity help disentangle these issues and ground an argument that intentional action …
Ethnography and culture
Delayed preconditioning-mimetic actions of exercise or nitroglycerin do not affect haemodynamics and exercise performance in trained or sedentary individuals
Scientific Change as Political Action
A theory is value-neutral when no constitutive values are part of its content. Nonneutral theories seem to lack objectivity because it is not clear how the constitutive values could be empirically confirmed. This article analyzes Franz Boas’s famous arguments against nineteenth-century evolutionary anthropology and racial theory. While he recognized that talk of “higher civilizations” encoded a constitutive, political value with consequences for …
Relativism and the Ontological Turn within Anthropology
The "ontological turn" is a recent movement within cultural anthropology. Its proponents want to move beyond a representationalist framework, where cultures are treated as systems of belief (concepts, etc.) that provide different perspectives on a single world. Authors who write in this vein move from talk of many cultures to many "worlds," thus appearing to affirm a form of relativism. We argue that, unlike earlier forms of relativism, the ontol…
Philosophy of Social Science
The Philosophy of Social Science: A Contemporary Introduction examines the perennial questions of philosophy by engaging with the empirical study of society. The book offers a comprehensive overview of debates in the field, with special attention to questions arising from new research programs in the social sciences. The text uses detailed examples of social scientific research to motivate and illustrate the philosophical discussion. Topics inclu…
Normativity and Naturalism in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences
Normativity is one of the keywords of contemporary philosophical discussions Are the philosophers who argue for the irreducible role of normativity within accounts for human societies obliged to assume, as Stephen Turner has recently put it, the existence of a 'non-natural, non-empirical stuff that is claimed to be necessarily, intrinsically there and to in some sense account for the actual'? In this paper I argue that though paying due attention…
Anthropology without Belief
Rejecting the category of belief is one of the most striking and profound ideas to emerge from the ontological turn. This essay will argue that the rejection of belief is best understood as part of a broader rejection of representationalism. Representationalism regards thought, speech, and intentionality as depending primarily on the mind’s ability to manipulate beliefs, ideas, meanings, or similar contents. Some central strands of the ontologica…
Language, Truth, and Pedagogy
Early in the planning the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative, we realized that the encounter between Buddhism and contemporary science demanded that Buddhist logic and epistemology encounter Anglophone philosophy of science. A titanic clash of world views was anticipated, but as we began the conversation, we found something different. Many philosophical concerns were shared, but these problems were understood differently. While fundamental elements o…
Inference, explanation, and asymmetry
Scientific Representation
This essay presents a fully inferentialist-expressivist account of scientific representation. In general, inferentialist approaches to scientific representation argue that the capacity of a model to represent a target system depends on inferences from models to target systems (surrogative inference). Inferentialism is attractive because it makes the epistemic function of models central to their representational capacity. Prior inferentialist appr…
Philosophy of Social Science
Philosophy of Social Science: A Contemporary Introduction examines perennial questions of philosophy through engaging the empirical study of society. Questions of normativity concern the place of values in social scientific inquiry. Questions of naturalism concern the relationship between the natural and the social sciences. And questions of reductionism ask how social institutions relate to the people who constitute them. This accessible text of…
Thick Concepts and Impartiality
Thick concepts have both descriptive and evaluative dimensions to their meaning. Some have argued that because the descriptive and evaluative dimensions cannot be separated (they are “blended”), the implicit values influence the confirmation of any “mixed claims” containing the thick concept. Using the development of the concept of hypersegregation as a case study, we argue for a distinction between the semantic function of definitions and the ep…
Epistemology (19 works) · Philosophy (19 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (8 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Social science (6 works) · Political science (5 works) · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture (4 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (4 works)