John Symons
Biographic Data
| ID | 3581422 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John Symons |
| GIVEN NAMES | John |
| FAMILY NAME | Symons |
| SIGNATURE | SYMONS J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Kansas |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8173-2948 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Economic impact of recycled and bioplastic packaging production in Australia - A Monte Carlo simulation model
The shift towards sustainable packaging necessitates evaluating alternatives such as recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) and bio-based polylactic acid (PLA) against conventional PET, particularly with respect to economic viability and environmental trade-offs in specific regional contexts, such as Australia. This study presents a comparative techno-economic analysis of PET, rPET, and PLA packaging production in Australia, employing an inte…
Close Personal Relationships with People and Artifacts? Loneliness, Agent-Relative Obligations, and Artificially Intelligent Companions
No-Regret Learning Supports Voters’ Competence
Procedural justifications of democracy emphasize inclusiveness and respect and by doing so come into conflict with instrumental justifications that depend on voters’ competence. This conflict raises questions about jury theorems and makes their standing in democratic theory contested. We show that a type of no-regret learning called meta-induction can help to satisfy the competence assumption without excluding voters or diverse opinion leaders on…
The History and Philosophy of Materialism
International audience
Experimental philosophy within its proper bounds
In Philosophy Within its Proper Bounds, Édouard Machery argues that the results of experimental philosophy (‘x-phi’) should lead us to abandon much of traditional philosophical practice. In its place Machery defends naturalized conceptual analysis as a more modest and pragmatic alternative to standard analytic philosophy. This paper argues that Machery overstates the metaphilosophical significance of x-phi’s results. We can and should keep many o…
Epistemic injustice and data science technologies
Open-mindedness as a Corrective Virtue
This paper argues that open-mindedness is a corrective virtue. It serves as a corrective to the epistemic vice of confirmation bias. Specifically, open-mindedness is the epistemically virtuous disposition to resist the negative effects of confirmation bias on our ability to reason well and to evaluate evidence and arguments. As part of the defense and presentation of our account, we explore four discussions of open-mindedness in the recent litera…
Value judgments in a Covid-19 vaccination model: A case study in the need for public involvement in health-oriented modelling
Scientific modelling is a value-laden process: the decisions involved can seldom be made using 'scientific' criteria alone, but rather draw on social and ethical values. In this paper, we draw on a body of philosophical literature to analyze a COVID-19 vaccination model, presenting a case study of social and ethical value judgments in health-oriented modelling. This case study urges us to make value judgments in health-oriented models explicit an…
Software engineering standards for epidemiological models
There are many tangled normative and technical questions involved in evaluating the quality of software used in epidemiological simulations. In this paper we answer some of these questions and offer practical guidance to practitioners, funders, scientific journals, and consumers of epidemiological research. The heart of our paper is a case study of the Imperial College London (ICL) covid-19 simulator, set in the context of recent work in epistemo…
Understanding Error Rates in Software Engineering: Conceptual, Empirical, and Experimental Approaches
Can we trust Big Data? Applying philosophy of science to software
We address some of the epistemological challenges highlighted by the Critical Data Studies literature by reference to some of the key debates in the philosophy of science concerning computational modeling and simulation. We provide a brief overview of these debates focusing particularly on what Paul Humphreys calls epistemic opacity. We argue that debates in Critical Data Studies and philosophy of science have neglected the problem of error manag…
Software Intensive Science
Reply to Angius and Primiero on Software Intensive Science
Special Sciences and the Unity of Science
The Golden Age of Polish Philosophy
Degrees of Belief
Nominalism and Its Aftermath: The Philosophy of Nelson Goodman
A Computational Modeling Strategy for Levels
Rather than taking the ontological fundamentality of an ideal microphysics as a starting point, this article sketches an approach to the problem of levels that swaps assumptions about ontology for assumptions about inquiry. These assumptions can be implemented formally via computational modeling techniques that will be described below. It is argued that these models offer a way to save some of our prominent commonsense intuitions concerning level…
Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science
Entre darwinisme et biopolitique, le naturalisme en chantier: Entretien réalisé par Charles Wolfe
Dans cet entretien, Symons discute de l’etendue et des caracteristiques de la philosophie de la biologie, sans oublier certaines questions concernant les dimensions politiques des developpements biologiques. Parmi les themes de l’entretien on trouvera : la nature de la connaissance biologique ; le statut du reductionnisme ; et les problemes contemporains autour du darwinisme, la biotechnologie et le clonage
Medical illustrated books
Systems of Visual Identification in Neuroscience: Lessons from Epistemic Logic
The following analysis shows how developments in epistemic logic can play a nontrivial role in cognitive neuroscience. We argue that the striking correspondence between two modes of identification, as distinguished in the epistemic context, and two cognitive systems distinguished by neuroscientific investigation of the visual system (the “where” and “what” systems) is not coincidental, and that it can play a clarificatory role at the most fundame…
Somos fronterizos
En examinant soigneusement la ville de El Paso-Ciudad Juárez, nous sommes en mesure de corriger quelques incompréhensions répandues relatives à la frontière entre les États-Unis, et le Mexique. Sans doute les « Fronterizos » nous fournissent-ils un nouveau modèle positif pour les relations transnationales
Can we trust Big Data? Applying philosophy of science to software
We address some of the epistemological challenges highlighted by the Critical Data Studies literature by reference to some of the key debates in the philosophy of science concerning computational modeling and simulation. We provide a brief overview of these debates focusing particularly on what Paul Humphreys calls epistemic opacity. We argue that debates in Critical Data Studies and philosophy of science have neglected the problem of error manag…
Epistemic injustice and data science technologies
Value judgments in a Covid-19 vaccination model: A case study in the need for public involvement in health-oriented modelling
Scientific modelling is a value-laden process: the decisions involved can seldom be made using 'scientific' criteria alone, but rather draw on social and ethical values. In this paper, we draw on a body of philosophical literature to analyze a COVID-19 vaccination model, presenting a case study of social and ethical value judgments in health-oriented modelling. This case study urges us to make value judgments in health-oriented models explicit an…
Software engineering standards for epidemiological models
There are many tangled normative and technical questions involved in evaluating the quality of software used in epidemiological simulations. In this paper we answer some of these questions and offer practical guidance to practitioners, funders, scientific journals, and consumers of epidemiological research. The heart of our paper is a case study of the Imperial College London (ICL) covid-19 simulator, set in the context of recent work in epistemo…
Entre darwinisme et biopolitique, le naturalisme en chantier: Entretien réalisé par Charles Wolfe
Dans cet entretien, Symons discute de l’etendue et des caracteristiques de la philosophie de la biologie, sans oublier certaines questions concernant les dimensions politiques des developpements biologiques. Parmi les themes de l’entretien on trouvera : la nature de la connaissance biologique ; le statut du reductionnisme ; et les problemes contemporains autour du darwinisme, la biotechnologie et le clonage
Systems of Visual Identification in Neuroscience: Lessons from Epistemic Logic
The following analysis shows how developments in epistemic logic can play a nontrivial role in cognitive neuroscience. We argue that the striking correspondence between two modes of identification, as distinguished in the epistemic context, and two cognitive systems distinguished by neuroscientific investigation of the visual system (the “where” and “what” systems) is not coincidental, and that it can play a clarificatory role at the most fundame…
Medical illustrated books
Systems of Visual Identification in Neuroscience: Lessons from Epistemic Logic
The following analysis shows how developments in epistemic logic can play a nontrivial role in cognitive neuroscience. We argue that the striking correspondence between two modes of identification, as distinguished in the epistemic context, and two cognitive systems distinguished by neuroscientific investigation of the visual system (the “where” and “what” systems) is not coincidental, and that it can play a clarificatory role at the most fundame…
Somos fronterizos
En examinant soigneusement la ville de El Paso-Ciudad Juárez, nous sommes en mesure de corriger quelques incompréhensions répandues relatives à la frontière entre les États-Unis, et le Mexique. Sans doute les « Fronterizos » nous fournissent-ils un nouveau modèle positif pour les relations transnationales
Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science
Entre darwinisme et biopolitique, le naturalisme en chantier: Entretien réalisé par Charles Wolfe
Dans cet entretien, Symons discute de l’etendue et des caracteristiques de la philosophie de la biologie, sans oublier certaines questions concernant les dimensions politiques des developpements biologiques. Parmi les themes de l’entretien on trouvera : la nature de la connaissance biologique ; le statut du reductionnisme ; et les problemes contemporains autour du darwinisme, la biotechnologie et le clonage
A Computational Modeling Strategy for Levels
Rather than taking the ontological fundamentality of an ideal microphysics as a starting point, this article sketches an approach to the problem of levels that swaps assumptions about ontology for assumptions about inquiry. These assumptions can be implemented formally via computational modeling techniques that will be described below. It is argued that these models offer a way to save some of our prominent commonsense intuitions concerning level…
The Golden Age of Polish Philosophy
Degrees of Belief
Nominalism and Its Aftermath: The Philosophy of Nelson Goodman
Special Sciences and the Unity of Science
Software Intensive Science
Reply to Angius and Primiero on Software Intensive Science
Can we trust Big Data? Applying philosophy of science to software
We address some of the epistemological challenges highlighted by the Critical Data Studies literature by reference to some of the key debates in the philosophy of science concerning computational modeling and simulation. We provide a brief overview of these debates focusing particularly on what Paul Humphreys calls epistemic opacity. We argue that debates in Critical Data Studies and philosophy of science have neglected the problem of error manag…
Understanding Error Rates in Software Engineering: Conceptual, Empirical, and Experimental Approaches
Software engineering standards for epidemiological models
There are many tangled normative and technical questions involved in evaluating the quality of software used in epidemiological simulations. In this paper we answer some of these questions and offer practical guidance to practitioners, funders, scientific journals, and consumers of epidemiological research. The heart of our paper is a case study of the Imperial College London (ICL) covid-19 simulator, set in the context of recent work in epistemo…
Open-mindedness as a Corrective Virtue
This paper argues that open-mindedness is a corrective virtue. It serves as a corrective to the epistemic vice of confirmation bias. Specifically, open-mindedness is the epistemically virtuous disposition to resist the negative effects of confirmation bias on our ability to reason well and to evaluate evidence and arguments. As part of the defense and presentation of our account, we explore four discussions of open-mindedness in the recent litera…
Value judgments in a Covid-19 vaccination model: A case study in the need for public involvement in health-oriented modelling
Scientific modelling is a value-laden process: the decisions involved can seldom be made using 'scientific' criteria alone, but rather draw on social and ethical values. In this paper, we draw on a body of philosophical literature to analyze a COVID-19 vaccination model, presenting a case study of social and ethical value judgments in health-oriented modelling. This case study urges us to make value judgments in health-oriented models explicit an…
Experimental philosophy within its proper bounds
In Philosophy Within its Proper Bounds, Édouard Machery argues that the results of experimental philosophy (‘x-phi’) should lead us to abandon much of traditional philosophical practice. In its place Machery defends naturalized conceptual analysis as a more modest and pragmatic alternative to standard analytic philosophy. This paper argues that Machery overstates the metaphilosophical significance of x-phi’s results. We can and should keep many o…
Epistemic injustice and data science technologies
No-Regret Learning Supports Voters’ Competence
Procedural justifications of democracy emphasize inclusiveness and respect and by doing so come into conflict with instrumental justifications that depend on voters’ competence. This conflict raises questions about jury theorems and makes their standing in democratic theory contested. We show that a type of no-regret learning called meta-induction can help to satisfy the competence assumption without excluding voters or diverse opinion leaders on…
The History and Philosophy of Materialism
International audience
Close Personal Relationships with People and Artifacts? Loneliness, Agent-Relative Obligations, and Artificially Intelligent Companions
Economic impact of recycled and bioplastic packaging production in Australia - A Monte Carlo simulation model
The shift towards sustainable packaging necessitates evaluating alternatives such as recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) and bio-based polylactic acid (PLA) against conventional PET, particularly with respect to economic viability and environmental trade-offs in specific regional contexts, such as Australia. This study presents a comparative techno-economic analysis of PET, rPET, and PLA packaging production in Australia, employing an inte…
Philosophy (17 works) · Epistemology (16 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Philosophy of science (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (5 works) · Software (5 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (4 works) · Mathematics (4 works) · Political science (4 works)