With increasing interest in citizen science, this paper discusses how amateur naturalism, especially entomology, is placed within science discourses. Through a case study of entomology Finland, the amateurs' diverse motivations for engaging with nature. The affective and ethical aspects its implications science. discussion based on an ethnographic entomologist society. suggests that naturalism ...

Many philosophers of biology accept some form of realism about species. Accounting for their reality, however, has proved challenging. Proposals about what ontological category species taxa belong to seem either to face serious difficulties or involve contentious metaphysical commitments. In this paper, I shall sketch a strategy for accommodating the reality of species without with minimal meta...

We present a precise form of structural realism, called group structural realism, which identifies ‘structure’ in quantum theory with symmetry groups. However, working out the details of this view actually illuminates a major problem for structural realism; namely, a structure can itself have structure. This paper argues that, once a precise characterization of structure is given, the ‘metaphys...

Recent work on analyticity distinguishes two kinds, metaphysical and epistemic. This paper argues that the distinction allows for a new view in the philosophy of logic according to which the claims of logic are metaphysically analytic and have distinctive modal profiles, even though their epistemology is holist and in many ways rather Quinean. It is argued that such a view combines some of the ...

Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism aims to show that the conjunction of contemporary evolutionary theory (E) with the claim that there is no God (N) cannot be rationally accepted. Where R is the claim that our cognitive faculties are reliable, the argument is: P1. The probability of R given N and E is low or inscrutable. P2. Anyone who sees (1) and accepts (N&E) has a de...

Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism aims to show that the conjunction of contemporary evolutionary theory (E) with the claim that there is no God (N) cannot be rationally accepted. Where R is the claim that our cognitive faculties are reliable, the argument is: P1. The probability of R given N and E is low or inscrutable. P2. Anyone who sees (1) and accepts (N&E) has a de...

100-word abstract §1 gives a preliminary explanation of the concept of reference. §2 is an analysis of descriptivism, the first systematic theory of reference. §3 begins with criticisms of descriptivism, and then details the development of the causal-historical theory of reference, which has been the orthodox view of reference since the 1970s. §4 is an exposition of three concepts that play maj...

Many people assume ceaseless conflict between natural science and Christianity, but the real has been scientism Christianity. Scientism is view that only sciences (especially not theology) generate knowledge or rational belief. I show how Christianity generated beliefs contributed to rise of science. This science-fostering belief included rationales for when practice methodological naturalism, ...

Warner’s article discusses what might be thought of as genuinely lifelike in fiction, against the conventions realism and naturalism that she found fiction 1920s.

Abstract It is quite unequivocal that Kuhn was committed to (some version of) naturalism; he defended, especially in his later work, the autonomy of scientific rationality; and rejected correspondence theory truth, i.e., traditional realistic conception world’s mind-independence. In this paper, I argue these three philosophical perspectives form an uneasy triangle, for while it possible coheren...