Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Science

Preface

Introduction: What is the Philosophy of Science?

Part I: Do Thought Experiments Transcend Empiricism?

1. Why Thought Experiments Transcend Empiricism
James Robert Brown, University of Toronto

2. Why Thought Experiments do not Transcend Empiricism
John Norton, University of Pittsburgh

Part II: Does Probability Capture the Logic of Scientific Confirmation or Justification?

3. Probability Captures the Logic of Scientific Confirmation
Patrick Maher, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

4. Why Probability Does not Capture the Logic of Scientific Justification
Kevin Kelly, Carnegie Mellon University and Clark Glymour, Carnegie Mellon University

Part III: Can a Theory's Predictive Success Warrant Belief in the Unobservable Entities it Postulates?

5. A Theory's Predictive Success Can Warrant Belief in the Unobservable Entities it Postulates
Jarrett Leplin, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

6. A Theory's Predictive Success Does not Warrant Belief in the Unobservable Entities it Postulates
André Kukla, University of Toronto and Joel Walmsley, University of Toronto

Part IV: Are There Laws in the Social Sciences?

7. There are no Laws in the Social Sciences
John Roberts, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

8. There are Laws in the Social Sciences
Harold Kincaid, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Part V: Are Causes Physically Connected to their Effects?

9. Causes are Physically Connected to Their Effects: Why Preventers and Omissions are not Causes
Phil Dowe, University of Queensland, Australia

10. Causes Need Not be Physically Connected to their Effects: The Case for Negative Causation
Jonathan Schaffer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Part VI: Is There a Puzzle about the Low Entropy Past?

11. On the Origins of the Arrow of Time: Why There is Still a Puzzle About the Low Entropy Past
Huw Price, University of Edinburgh

12. There is No Puzzle About the Low Entropy Past
Craig Callender

Part VII: Do Genes Encode Information About Phenotypic Traits

13. Genes Encode Information for Phenotypic Traits
Sahotra Sarkar, University of Texas at Austin

14. Genes Do not Encode Information for Phenotypic Traits
Peter Godfrey-Smith, Stanford University

Part VIII: Is the Mind a System of Modules Shaped by Natural Selection?

15. The Mind is a System of Modules Shaped by Natural Selection
Peter Carruthers, University of Maryland

16. The Mind is Not (Just) a System of Modules Shaped (Just) by Natural Selection
Fiona Cowie, California Institute of Technology and James Woodward, California Institute of Technology

Index