PHILOSOPHY – Epistemology: The Paradox of the Ravens
24 July 2015 | Wireless Philosophy on YouTube | View the Video
In this Wireless Philosophy video, Marc Lange (UNC-Chapel Hill) introduces the paradox of confirmation, one that arises from instance confirmation, the equivalence condition, and common inference rules of logic.
‘If the laws of nature prohibit some kind of event (such as increasing the total quantity of energy in the universe, or accelerating a body from rest to beyond the speed of light — or improving a lightning rod by making it blunter), then it is not merely the case that such an event does not happen. Such an event cannot happen; it is impossible. The laws are not merely true; they could not have been false.’
‘Subjunctive facts are not spooky or exotic. We discover them in exactly the same way as we discover various facts “about the actual world”: by engaging in ampliative reasoning from our observations. A subjunctive fact about how the water in my glass would have behaved, if it had a given temperature and pressure, is arguably even less remote from my observations than a non-subjunctive fact about how some water actually behaves in some spatiotemporally very distant intergalactic region with that temperature and pressure. This comparison is obscured if we refer to the former water as existing in a merely possible world, whereas the latter water is our neighbor here in the actual world.‘
‘Here is a simple example of one kind of non-causal explanation. Why is it that Mother fails every time she tries to divide her 23 strawberries evenly among her 3 children without cutting any (strawberries – or children!)? The answer does not have to do with the particular causal mechanisms that she used to distribute her strawberries. Rather, the explanation is that her success was mathematically impossible: 3 does not go into 23 evenly.’
‘A given game may be worth playing at least partly by virtue of its relations to other mathematical games that are independently worthwhile. One of the features that can make a game worthwhile is that it enables mathematical explanations to be given (or demanded) that could not be given (or demanded) before.’
‘In both mathematics and science, there are tight connections between being an explanation, being able to render similarities non-coincidental, and being a natural property. These connections contribute toward making all of these varieties of explanation into species of the same genus.’
Marc Lange specializes in philosophy of science and related areas of metaphysics and epistemology, including parts of the philosophy of physics, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of mathematics. Here he discusses the necessity of laws of nature, why their necessity is contingent, whether these laws are immutable, what meta-laws are and what they’re for, laws and objective chance, why laws are laws because they are necessary rather than because they are laws, non-causal explanations in science and maths, explanation by constraint and why we don’t find them in maths, really statistical and dimensional explanations, why non-causal explanations are important in maths, and why despite their diversity non-causal explanations really are all explanations. This one needs time and a steady minds eye…
Why am I passionate about this?
My undergraduate physics textbook asked, “What is an electric field? Is it something real, or is it merely a name for a factor in an equation which has to be multiplied by something else to give the numerical value of the force we measure in an experiment?” Here, I thought, is a good question! But the textbook said that since electromagnetic theory “works, it doesn’t make any difference” what an electric field is! Then it said, “That is not a frivolous answer, but a serious one.” I felt ashamed. But my physics teacher helpfully suggested that I “speak to the philosophers.” I am very pleased that I decided to become one!