Alexander Bird
Biographic Data
| ID | 3698381 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alexander Bird |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alexander |
| FAMILY NAME | Bird |
| SIGNATURE | BIRD A |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 130 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Restricted Composition is Information Compression
This paper proposes and examines an answer to the special composition question-complex objects compress information about their parts. I start by defending fastenation for material objects and then extract from fastenation the idea that the conjoinment of parts establishes correlations among the locations and motions of those parts. I move from this to the proposal that entities are parts of some object when that object allows for the efficient, …
Understanding the Replication Crisis as a Base Rate Fallacy
The replication (replicability, reproducibility) crisis in social psychology and clinical medicine arises from the fact that many apparently well-confirmed experimental results are subsequently overturned by studies that aim to replicate the original study. The culprit is widely held to be poor science: questionable research practices, failure to publish negative results, bad incentives, and even fraud. In this article I argue that the high rate …
Overpowering: How the Powers Ontology Has Overreached Itself
Many authors have argued in favour of an ontology of properties as powers , and it has been widely argued that this ontology allows us to address certain philosophical problems in novel and illuminating ways, for example, causation, representation, intentionality, free will and liberty. I argue that the ontology of powers, even if successful as an account of fundamental natural properties, does not provide the insight claimed as regards the afore…
Laws and Lawmakers: Science, Metaphysics, and the Laws of Nature
In recent years a resurgence of interest in the laws of nature has led to a number of new books on the topic, articulating a variety of perspectives from neo-empiricism to neo-Aristotelianism, and from primitivism to eliminativism. Of these new works, in my view, the most original and intriguing is Marc Lange's Laws and Lawmakers. It has long been noted that laws support counterfactual and subjunctive conditionals. Generally those who have though…
Arguing About Science
Arguing About Science is an outstanding, engaging introduction to the essential topics in philosophy of science, edited by two leading experts in the field. This exciting and innovative anthology contains a selection of classic and contemporary readings that examine a broad range of issues, from classic problems such as scientific reasoning; causation; and scientific realism, to more recent topics such as science and race; forensic science; and t…
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and its Significance: An Essay Review of the Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the most cited books of the twentieth century. Its iconic and controversial nature has obscured its message. What did Kuhn really intend with Structure and what is its real significance? 1 Introduction 2 The Central Ideas of Structure 3 The Philosophical Targets of Structure 4 Interpreting and Misinterpreting Structure 4.1 Naturalism 4.2 World-change 4.3 Incommensurability 4.4 Progress and the …
Eliminative abduction: Examples from medicine
Scientific progress as accumulation of knowledge: A reply to Rowbottom
Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties
Bird, a world-leader in the field, offers an original approach to key issues in philosophy. He discusses hot topics in metaphysics and the philosophy of science.
The Regress of Pure Powers
Dispositional monism is the view that natural properties and relations are `pure powers'. It is often objected that dispositional monism involves some kind of vicious or otherwise unpalatable regress or circularity. I examine ways of making this objection precise. The most pressing interpretation is that the theory fails to make the identities of powers determinate. I demonstrate that this objection is in error. It does, however, put certain cons…
Defending Science — Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism
Book Review| January 01 2006 Defending Science — Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism Susan Haack, Defending Science — Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003. 411 pp. Alexander Bird Alexander Bird Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2006) 115 (1): 131–133. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2005-012 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissio…
Can Scientific Practices Put Norms Back into Nature?
Kuhn, naturalism, and the positivist legacy
Is Evidence Non-Inferential
Evidence is often taken to be foundational, in that while other propositions may be inferred from our evidence, evidence propositions are themselves not inferred from anything. I argue that this conception is false, since the non‐inferential propositions on which beliefs are ultimately founded may be forgotten or undermined in the course of enquiry
Nozick’s fourth condition
Kuhn, Nominalism, and Empiricism
In this paper I draw a connection between Kuhn and the empiricist legacy, specifically between his thesis of incommensurability, in particular in its later taxonomic form, and van Fraassen's constructive empiricism. I show that if it is the case the empirically equivalent but genuinely distinct theories do exist, then we can expect such theories to be taxonomically incommensurable. I link this to Hacking's claim that Kuhn was a nominalist. I also…
Kuhn’s wrong turning
Philosophie des sciences de la nature. Angèle Kremer-Marietti
Further Antidotes: A Response to Gundersen
In my ‘Dispositions and Antidotes’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 48 (1998), I raise an objection to the conditional analysis of dispositions, both in its simple formulation and in a more sophisticated version due to David Lewis, The Philosophical Quarterly, 47 (1997). The objection suggests that a disposition may be continuously present and the appropriate stimulus occur without the manifestation occurring, because some outside influence, an anti…
Dispositions and Antidotes
Charlie Martin has shown that the simple conditional analysis of dispositional concepts (x is disposed at time t to give response r to stimulus s) is in error. This is due to finkish dispositions which are caused to disappear by the stimulus s. David Lewis has proposed an improved analysis which takes account of finkish dispositions by requiring that the appropriate causal bias remains for a sufficiently long time. In this paper I argue that Lewi…
The Logic in Logicism
Le logicisme de Frege engage à deux thèses: (1) les vérités de l'arithmétique sont ipso facto vérités de logique; (2) les nombres naturels sont des objets. Dans cet article je pose la question: quelle conception de la logique est-elle requise pour étayer ces thèses? Je soutiens qu'il existe une conception appropriée et naturelle de la logique, en vertu de laquelle leprincipe de Hume est une vérité logique. Leprincipe de Hume, qui dit que le nombr…
Craig Dilworth, The Metaphysics of Science . Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1996
Squaring the Circle: Hobbes on Philosophy and Geometry
Squaring the Circle: Hobbes on Philosophy and Geometry Alexander Bird With great applause the algebrists then read Wallis his Algebra now published. A hundred years that geometrick pest Ago began, which did that age infest. The art of finding out the numbers sought, Which Diophantus once, and Geber taught: And then Vieta tells you that by this Each geometrick problem solved is. Savil the Oxford reader did supply Wallis with principles noble and h…
Dispositions and Antidotes
Charlie Martin has shown that the simple conditional analysis of dispositional concepts (x is disposed at time t to give response r to stimulus s) is in error. This is due to finkish dispositions which are caused to disappear by the stimulus s. David Lewis has proposed an improved analysis which takes account of finkish dispositions by requiring that the appropriate causal bias remains for a sufficiently long time. In this paper I argue that Lewi…
Scientific progress as accumulation of knowledge: A reply to Rowbottom
The Regress of Pure Powers
Dispositional monism is the view that natural properties and relations are `pure powers'. It is often objected that dispositional monism involves some kind of vicious or otherwise unpalatable regress or circularity. I examine ways of making this objection precise. The most pressing interpretation is that the theory fails to make the identities of powers determinate. I demonstrate that this objection is in error. It does, however, put certain cons…
Kuhn’s wrong turning
Understanding the Replication Crisis as a Base Rate Fallacy
The replication (replicability, reproducibility) crisis in social psychology and clinical medicine arises from the fact that many apparently well-confirmed experimental results are subsequently overturned by studies that aim to replicate the original study. The culprit is widely held to be poor science: questionable research practices, failure to publish negative results, bad incentives, and even fraud. In this article I argue that the high rate …
Eliminative abduction: Examples from medicine
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and its Significance: An Essay Review of the Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the most cited books of the twentieth century. Its iconic and controversial nature has obscured its message. What did Kuhn really intend with Structure and what is its real significance? 1 Introduction 2 The Central Ideas of Structure 3 The Philosophical Targets of Structure 4 Interpreting and Misinterpreting Structure 4.1 Naturalism 4.2 World-change 4.3 Incommensurability 4.4 Progress and the …
Restricted Composition is Information Compression
This paper proposes and examines an answer to the special composition question-complex objects compress information about their parts. I start by defending fastenation for material objects and then extract from fastenation the idea that the conjoinment of parts establishes correlations among the locations and motions of those parts. I move from this to the proposal that entities are parts of some object when that object allows for the efficient, …
Kuhn, naturalism, and the positivist legacy
Is Evidence Non-Inferential
Evidence is often taken to be foundational, in that while other propositions may be inferred from our evidence, evidence propositions are themselves not inferred from anything. I argue that this conception is false, since the non‐inferential propositions on which beliefs are ultimately founded may be forgotten or undermined in the course of enquiry
Kuhn, Nominalism, and Empiricism
In this paper I draw a connection between Kuhn and the empiricist legacy, specifically between his thesis of incommensurability, in particular in its later taxonomic form, and van Fraassen's constructive empiricism. I show that if it is the case the empirically equivalent but genuinely distinct theories do exist, then we can expect such theories to be taxonomically incommensurable. I link this to Hacking's claim that Kuhn was a nominalist. I also…
Squaring the Circle: Hobbes on Philosophy and Geometry
Squaring the Circle: Hobbes on Philosophy and Geometry Alexander Bird With great applause the algebrists then read Wallis his Algebra now published. A hundred years that geometrick pest Ago began, which did that age infest. The art of finding out the numbers sought, Which Diophantus once, and Geber taught: And then Vieta tells you that by this Each geometrick problem solved is. Savil the Oxford reader did supply Wallis with principles noble and h…
The Logic in Logicism
Le logicisme de Frege engage à deux thèses: (1) les vérités de l'arithmétique sont ipso facto vérités de logique; (2) les nombres naturels sont des objets. Dans cet article je pose la question: quelle conception de la logique est-elle requise pour étayer ces thèses? Je soutiens qu'il existe une conception appropriée et naturelle de la logique, en vertu de laquelle leprincipe de Hume est une vérité logique. Leprincipe de Hume, qui dit que le nombr…
Squaring the Circle: Hobbes on Philosophy and Geometry
Squaring the Circle: Hobbes on Philosophy and Geometry Alexander Bird With great applause the algebrists then read Wallis his Algebra now published. A hundred years that geometrick pest Ago began, which did that age infest. The art of finding out the numbers sought, Which Diophantus once, and Geber taught: And then Vieta tells you that by this Each geometrick problem solved is. Savil the Oxford reader did supply Wallis with principles noble and h…
The Logic in Logicism
Le logicisme de Frege engage à deux thèses: (1) les vérités de l'arithmétique sont ipso facto vérités de logique; (2) les nombres naturels sont des objets. Dans cet article je pose la question: quelle conception de la logique est-elle requise pour étayer ces thèses? Je soutiens qu'il existe une conception appropriée et naturelle de la logique, en vertu de laquelle leprincipe de Hume est une vérité logique. Leprincipe de Hume, qui dit que le nombr…
Craig Dilworth, The Metaphysics of Science . Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1996
Dispositions and Antidotes
Charlie Martin has shown that the simple conditional analysis of dispositional concepts (x is disposed at time t to give response r to stimulus s) is in error. This is due to finkish dispositions which are caused to disappear by the stimulus s. David Lewis has proposed an improved analysis which takes account of finkish dispositions by requiring that the appropriate causal bias remains for a sufficiently long time. In this paper I argue that Lewi…
Further Antidotes: A Response to Gundersen
In my ‘Dispositions and Antidotes’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 48 (1998), I raise an objection to the conditional analysis of dispositions, both in its simple formulation and in a more sophisticated version due to David Lewis, The Philosophical Quarterly, 47 (1997). The objection suggests that a disposition may be continuously present and the appropriate stimulus occur without the manifestation occurring, because some outside influence, an anti…
Philosophie des sciences de la nature. Angèle Kremer-Marietti
Kuhn’s wrong turning
Nozick’s fourth condition
Kuhn, Nominalism, and Empiricism
In this paper I draw a connection between Kuhn and the empiricist legacy, specifically between his thesis of incommensurability, in particular in its later taxonomic form, and van Fraassen's constructive empiricism. I show that if it is the case the empirically equivalent but genuinely distinct theories do exist, then we can expect such theories to be taxonomically incommensurable. I link this to Hacking's claim that Kuhn was a nominalist. I also…
Can Scientific Practices Put Norms Back into Nature?
Kuhn, naturalism, and the positivist legacy
Is Evidence Non-Inferential
Evidence is often taken to be foundational, in that while other propositions may be inferred from our evidence, evidence propositions are themselves not inferred from anything. I argue that this conception is false, since the non‐inferential propositions on which beliefs are ultimately founded may be forgotten or undermined in the course of enquiry
Defending Science — Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism
Book Review| January 01 2006 Defending Science — Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism Susan Haack, Defending Science — Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003. 411 pp. Alexander Bird Alexander Bird Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2006) 115 (1): 131–133. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2005-012 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissio…
Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties
Bird, a world-leader in the field, offers an original approach to key issues in philosophy. He discusses hot topics in metaphysics and the philosophy of science.
The Regress of Pure Powers
Dispositional monism is the view that natural properties and relations are `pure powers'. It is often objected that dispositional monism involves some kind of vicious or otherwise unpalatable regress or circularity. I examine ways of making this objection precise. The most pressing interpretation is that the theory fails to make the identities of powers determinate. I demonstrate that this objection is in error. It does, however, put certain cons…
Scientific progress as accumulation of knowledge: A reply to Rowbottom
Eliminative abduction: Examples from medicine
Arguing About Science
Arguing About Science is an outstanding, engaging introduction to the essential topics in philosophy of science, edited by two leading experts in the field. This exciting and innovative anthology contains a selection of classic and contemporary readings that examine a broad range of issues, from classic problems such as scientific reasoning; causation; and scientific realism, to more recent topics such as science and race; forensic science; and t…
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and its Significance: An Essay Review of the Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the most cited books of the twentieth century. Its iconic and controversial nature has obscured its message. What did Kuhn really intend with Structure and what is its real significance? 1 Introduction 2 The Central Ideas of Structure 3 The Philosophical Targets of Structure 4 Interpreting and Misinterpreting Structure 4.1 Naturalism 4.2 World-change 4.3 Incommensurability 4.4 Progress and the …
Laws and Lawmakers: Science, Metaphysics, and the Laws of Nature
In recent years a resurgence of interest in the laws of nature has led to a number of new books on the topic, articulating a variety of perspectives from neo-empiricism to neo-Aristotelianism, and from primitivism to eliminativism. Of these new works, in my view, the most original and intriguing is Marc Lange's Laws and Lawmakers. It has long been noted that laws support counterfactual and subjunctive conditionals. Generally those who have though…
Overpowering: How the Powers Ontology Has Overreached Itself
Many authors have argued in favour of an ontology of properties as powers , and it has been widely argued that this ontology allows us to address certain philosophical problems in novel and illuminating ways, for example, causation, representation, intentionality, free will and liberty. I argue that the ontology of powers, even if successful as an account of fundamental natural properties, does not provide the insight claimed as regards the afore…
Understanding the Replication Crisis as a Base Rate Fallacy
The replication (replicability, reproducibility) crisis in social psychology and clinical medicine arises from the fact that many apparently well-confirmed experimental results are subsequently overturned by studies that aim to replicate the original study. The culprit is widely held to be poor science: questionable research practices, failure to publish negative results, bad incentives, and even fraud. In this article I argue that the high rate …
Restricted Composition is Information Compression
This paper proposes and examines an answer to the special composition question-complex objects compress information about their parts. I start by defending fastenation for material objects and then extract from fastenation the idea that the conjoinment of parts establishes correlations among the locations and motions of those parts. I move from this to the proposal that entities are parts of some object when that object allows for the efficient, …
Philosophy (21 works) · Epistemology (17 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (12 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (7 works) · Metaphysics (6 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (6 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Political science (4 works)