Benjamin C Jantzen
Biographic Data
| ID | 5969917 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Benjamin C Jantzen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Benjamin C |
| FAMILY NAME | Jantzen |
| SIGNATURE | JANTZEN B C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Virginia Tech |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9040-679X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 11 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Scientific Variables
Despite their centrality to the scientific enterprise, both the nature of scientific variables and their relation to inductive inference remain obscure. I suggest that scientific variables should be viewed as equivalence classes of sets of physical states mapped to representations (often real numbers) in a structure preserving fashion, and argue that most scientific variables introduced to expand the degrees of freedom in terms of which we descri…
Kinds of process and the levels of selection
Discovery without a ‘logic’ would be a miracle
Projection, symmetry, and natural kinds
Ontology & methodology
An Introduction to Design Arguments
The history of design arguments stretches back to before Aquinas, who claimed that things which lack intelligence nevertheless act for an end to achieve the best result. Although science has advanced to discredit this claim, it remains true that many biological systems display remarkable adaptations of means to ends. Versions of design arguments have persisted over the centuries and have culminated in theories that propose an intelligent designer…
Introduction to Design Arguments
Piecewise versus Total Support
The use of the Law of Likelihood (LL) as a general tool for assessing rival hypotheses has been criticized for its ambiguous treatment of background information. The LL endorses radically different answers depending on what information is designated as background versus evidence. I argue that once one distinguishes between two questions about evidentiary support, the ambiguity vanishes. I demonstrate this resolution by applying it to a debate ove…
No two entities without identity
An Awkward Symmetry
Physical theories continue to be interpreted in terms of particles. The idea of a particle has required modification for successive theories but remains central to scientific explanation. Particle ontologies also have the virtue of explaining basic epistemic features of the world and so remain appealing for the scientific realist. However, particle ontologies are untenable when coupled with the empirically necessary postulate of permutation invar…
Biological Codes and Topological Causation
Various causal details of the genetic process of translation have been singled out to account for its privileged status as a ‘code’. We explicate the biological uses of coding talk by characterizing a class of special causal processes in which topological properties are the causally relevant ones. This class contains both the process of translation and communication theoretic coding processes as special cases. We propose a formalism in terms of g…
No two entities without identity
Discovery without a ‘logic’ would be a miracle
Projection, symmetry, and natural kinds
Biological Codes and Topological Causation
Various causal details of the genetic process of translation have been singled out to account for its privileged status as a ‘code’. We explicate the biological uses of coding talk by characterizing a class of special causal processes in which topological properties are the causally relevant ones. This class contains both the process of translation and communication theoretic coding processes as special cases. We propose a formalism in terms of g…
Biological Codes and Topological Causation
Various causal details of the genetic process of translation have been singled out to account for its privileged status as a ‘code’. We explicate the biological uses of coding talk by characterizing a class of special causal processes in which topological properties are the causally relevant ones. This class contains both the process of translation and communication theoretic coding processes as special cases. We propose a formalism in terms of g…
No two entities without identity
An Awkward Symmetry
Physical theories continue to be interpreted in terms of particles. The idea of a particle has required modification for successive theories but remains central to scientific explanation. Particle ontologies also have the virtue of explaining basic epistemic features of the world and so remain appealing for the scientific realist. However, particle ontologies are untenable when coupled with the empirically necessary postulate of permutation invar…
An Introduction to Design Arguments
The history of design arguments stretches back to before Aquinas, who claimed that things which lack intelligence nevertheless act for an end to achieve the best result. Although science has advanced to discredit this claim, it remains true that many biological systems display remarkable adaptations of means to ends. Versions of design arguments have persisted over the centuries and have culminated in theories that propose an intelligent designer…
Introduction to Design Arguments
Piecewise versus Total Support
The use of the Law of Likelihood (LL) as a general tool for assessing rival hypotheses has been criticized for its ambiguous treatment of background information. The LL endorses radically different answers depending on what information is designated as background versus evidence. I argue that once one distinguishes between two questions about evidentiary support, the ambiguity vanishes. I demonstrate this resolution by applying it to a debate ove…
Projection, symmetry, and natural kinds
Ontology & methodology
Discovery without a ‘logic’ would be a miracle
Kinds of process and the levels of selection
Scientific Variables
Despite their centrality to the scientific enterprise, both the nature of scientific variables and their relation to inductive inference remain obscure. I suggest that scientific variables should be viewed as equivalence classes of sets of physical states mapped to representations (often real numbers) in a structure preserving fashion, and argue that most scientific variables introduced to expand the degrees of freedom in terms of which we descri…
Computer Science (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Mathematics (7 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (6 works) · Philosophy of science (6 works) · Artificial Intelligence (5 works) · Metaphysics (5 works) · Philosophy of language (5 works) · Artificial Intelligence (4 works)