Much work in ontology has been based on ideas derived explicitly from philosophy. In particular there are two philosophy-based high-level ontologies which have been used to analyse tools and techniques for designing information systems, both deriving from the tradition of realism – one from naturalism (Bunge), the other from Aristotelian common-sense realism (Chisholm). Does it matter which und...

Objective: The purpose of this study is to identify and extract the implications of critical realism for science, technology and innovation policy-making as one of the later research traditions in social sciences. Nevertheless, its main focus, according to the different stages of the policy-making cycle and extent of its contributing factors, is on the stage of "policy evaluation". Methods: Thi...

Michael Esfeld & Vincent Lam University of Lausanne, Department of Philosophy & Centre romand for logic, history and philosophy of science CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland [email protected], [email protected] (Draft, 8 June 2006, forthcoming in Synthese) Abstract This paper sets out a moderate version of metaphysical structural realism that stands in contrast to both the epistemic s...