The Philosophy of Logical Mechanism: Essays in Honor of Arthur W. Burks, with his responses

553 Pages·1989·8.13 MB·English

by  Professor Frederick Suppe (auth.)

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOGICAL MECHANISM
SYNTHESE LIBRARY
STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY,
LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Managing Editor:
JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Florida State University, Tallahassee
Editors:
DONALD DAVIDSON, University of California, Berkeley
GABRIEL NUCHELMANS, University of Leyden
WESLEY C. SALMON, University of Pittsburgh
VOLUME 206
Arthur W. Burks, Fall 1978
Photo by Bob Kalmbach
THE PHILOSOPHY
OF LOGICAL
MECHANISM
Essays in Honor of Arthur W. Burks
With his responses
With a bibliography of Works by Arthur W. Burks
Edited by
MERRILEE H. SALMON
University of Pittsburgh
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LONDON
Library of Congress Cata1og1ng-ln-Publlcatlon Data
The Philosophy of logical mechanism: essays in honor of Arthur H.
Burks. with his responses I edited by Merrilee H. Salmon.
p. em. -- (Synthese library; v. 20S)
Bibliography: p.
Inc 1u des index.
ISBN-\3:978-94-010-6933-5 e-ISBN-13:978-94-009-0987-8
001: 10.1007/978-94-009-0987-8
1. Electronic digital computers--History. 2. Seience--Philosophy.
3. Burks. Arthur H. (Arthur Halter). 1915- 1. Burks. Arthur H.
(Arthur Halter). 1915- II. Salmon. Merrilee H. III. Series.
QA7S.5.P3998 1989
005.13' 1--dc20 89-11238
CIP
ISBN-13:978-94-010-6933-5
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE IX
P ART I: CRITIAL ESSAYS
FREDERICK SUPPE / Is Science Really Inductive? 3
L. JONATHAN COHEN / Bolzano's Theory of Induction 29
BERNARD P. ZEIGLER / Cellular Space Models: New Formalism
for Simulation and Science 41
MANLEY THOMPSON / Some Reflections on Logical Truth as A
Priori 65
MICHAEL A. ARBIB / Semantics and Ontology: Arthur Burks
and the Computational Perspective 83
STEVEN. E. BOER / Names and Attitudes 99
RICHARD LAING / Machines and Behavior 131
ANDREW LUGG 1 Finite Automata and Human Beings 145
R. J. NELSON / On Guiding Rules 159
EDWARD C. MOORE / Actuality and Potentiality 179
SOSHICHI UCHII / Burks's Logic of Conditionals 191
F. JOHN CLENDINNEN / Presuppositions and the Normative
Content of Probability Statements 209
R. D. ROSENKRANTZ / Arthur Burks on the Presuppositions of
Induction 233
PETER RAILTON / Taking Physical Probability Seriously 251
BRIAN SKYRMS / Presuppositions of Induction 285
ROBERT AUDI / Scientific Objectivity and the Evaluation of
Hypotheses 321
PART II: THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOGICAL MECHANISM
REPLIES BY ARTHUR W. BURKS
1. INTRODUCTION 349
2. THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE 353
2.1 What are the foundations of science? 353
vii
2.2 Rules of induction and their formalization 363
2.3 Logical formalization and computer simulation 373
2.4 Modes of truth 385
3. COMPUTER AND MINDS 395
3.1 Language and the environment 395
3.2 Persons and robots 409
3.3 Mind from the inner point of view 418
3 . 4 Mind and body 428
4. EVOLUTION AND INDUCTION 444
4.1 Causal laws 444
4.2 Evolution and the presuppositions of induction 458
4.3 Probabilistic laws and empirical probabilities 478
4.4 Evolution, science, and values 495
5. THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOGICAL MECHANISM 515
NOTES 518
REFERENCES 519
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS BY ARTHUR W. BURKS 525
SUBJECT INDEX 533
NAME INDEX 548
viii
PREFACE
This work is divided into two parts. Part I contains sixteen critical es
says by prominent philosophers and computer scientists. Their papers
offer insightful, well-argued contemporary views of a broad range of
topics that lie at the heart of philosophy in the second half of the twen
tieth century: semantics and ontology, induction, the nature of prob
ability, the foundations of science, scientific objectivity, the theory of
naming, the logic of conditionals, simulation modeling, the relatiOn be
tween minds and machines, and the nature of rules that guide be
havior. In this volume honoring Arthur W. Burks, the philosophical
breadth of his work is thus manifested in the diverse aspects of that
work chosen for discussion and development by the contributors to his
Festschrift.
Part II consists of a book-length essay by Burks in which he lays out
his philosophy of logical mechanism while responding to the papers in
Part I. In doing so, he provides a unified and coherent context for the
range of problems raised in Part I, and he highlights interesting
relationships among the topics that might otherwise have gone un
noticed.
Part II is followed by a bibliography of Burks's published works.
This list of his publications provides ample evidence that technical vir
tuosity is not only compatible with serious work on traditional
philosophical problems but also enriches that work. Burks's contri
butions to philosophy emphatically refute the often-heard complaint
that contemporary philosophers, particularly philosophers of science,
are all narrow specialists who have abandoned the traditional problems
that draw most people to the study of philosophy in the first place.
Burks, who is probably best known to philosophers for his major
study of the foundations of science, Chance, Cause, Reason, has also
distinguished himself in the field of computer science. While maintain
ing an active role in the Philosophy Department at the University of
Michigan, he served for some years as head of the Computer Science
Department. His work in this field began with his involvement in the
ix
x PREFACE
development of the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic com
puter. Together with his wife Alice he has recently published The First
Electronic Computer: The Atanasnoff Story, a history of the contro
versy surrounding the invention of modern high-speed computers. He
was one of the first contemporary philosophers to write about the
philosophical implications of using computers as models of nature and
models of the human mind, and this continuing interest remains central
to his philosophy of logical mechanism.
The philosophy of logical mechanism represents a modern develop
ment of the atomistic view that originated with the Greeks. Burks, ac
knowledging that early forms of mechanistic atomism have not been
able to provide an adequate account of "the most unique human
abilities: explicit reasoning, intentional goal-directedness, conscious
ness, and the inner point of view," attempts to supplement the tra
ditional mechanistic theory with concepts drawn from logic, computers,
and evolutionary genetics to provide a reductivist account of the
"holistic-coherent systems of man, society, and science." In his ac
count, which analyzes these holistic-coherent systems as hierarchical
feedback systems, Burks takes seriously the importance of such
specifically human capacities as consciousness, self-consciousness, and
free choice. His work enriches our understanding of these features in
stead of attempting to explain them away by denying our uniqueness.
While some of the papers in this collection contain technical
material, most of them are accessible to a general reader with an inter
est in current issues in philosophy of science, philosophy of language,
or artificial intelligence. An attractive feature of this volume is the way
it brings together in a coherent fashion so many of the issues that
concern specialists in the three fields just mentioned.
My sincere thanks are extended to J aakko Hintikka for suggesting
this volume, to Arthur Burks and the authors of the critical essays con
tained herein, and to Charlotte Ashby for compiling the Indices.
Merrilee H. Salmon
History & Philosophy of
Science
University of Pittsburgh
PART I
CRITICAL ESSAYS
1