Browsing by Author "Lyons, Timothy D."

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Equipoise and Skepticism: Past, Present and Future
    (2008-08-22T14:35:30Z) Witt, John R.; Meslin, Eric Mark; Tilley, John J.; Lyons, Timothy D.
    Currently, the predominant view in research ethics maintains that physicians can morally justify offering randomized clinical trial enrollment to their patients only if some form of equipoise is present. Thus, the physician must experience (either individually or communally) a state of reasoned uncertainty concerning the relative merits of two or more competing treatments for a given disease before she may recommend that her patient participate in a clinical trial. Increasingly, however, this position has been subject to critical attention and considerable negative scrutiny. My argument engages this trend by turning to the history of philosophy; here I claim that the use of the term “equipoise” in the medical research context is extremely similar to terms and concepts from the philosophical tradition of skepticism, and as a result of this similarity it is possible to understand the principle of equipoise’s vulnerability to already published criticisms. A comparison of the criticisms of equipoise within the medical research literature to criticisms of philosophical skepticism reveals a potentially grim future for equipoise as a legitimate guiding principle for the ethical conduct of clinical research.
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    Gifts of fire: an historical analysis of the Promethean myth for the the light it casts on the philosophical philanthropy of Protagoras, Socrates and Plato; and prolegomena to consideration of the same in Bacon and Nietzsche
    (2012-03-19) Sulek, Marty James John; Lampert, Laurence, 1941-; Burlingame, Dwight; Lyons, Timothy D.; Peterson, Ursula N.
    The history of Western civilisation is generally demarcated into three broad epochs: ancient, Christian and modern. These eras are usually defined in political terms, but they may also be differentiated in terms of fundamental differences in the nature of the organisations that constitute civil society in each age, how they defined the public good, and even what they consider philanthropic. In the nineteenth century, for instance, 'Scientific philanthropy' displaced 'Christian charity' as the dominant model for charitable giving; a development accompanied by a number of other secularising trends in Western civil society, generally understood as a broad cultural shift in conceptions of public good, from religious to scientific. From the fourth to the sixth century CE, by comparison, another broad cultural shift, from paganism to Christianity, also led to fundamental changes in the nature and composition of ancient civil society. A central premise of this dissertation is that fundamental historical transformations in Western civilisation – from pagan to Christian, to modern, to post-modern – may be traced to the influence of some of the most important philosophers in the Western philosophical tradition, among them: Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Francis Bacon and Friedrich Nietzsche. Each of these philosophers may be seen to have promulgated their teachings in a consciously Promethean manner; as gifts of fire, understood as philosophical teachings intended to be promulgated for the wider benefit of humankind. In Greek myth, Prometheus, whose name is traditionally thought to have literally meant 'forethought', is the one who steals fire from the gods and gives it to humans. Prometheus is also the first figure in history to be described as "philanthropic" (Prometheus Bound, 11 & 28). Plato, Bacon and Nietzsche all employ significant variants of the Promethean mũthos in their philosophical works, and may be seen to personally identify with the figure of Prometheus, as an allegorical figure depicting the situation of the wise, particularly in relation to political power. This dissertation thus closely analyses the Promethean mũthos in order to cast light on the philosophical philanthrôpía and Promethean ambitions of Protagoras, Socrates and Plato, and to provide the basis for consideration of the same in Bacon and Nietzsche.
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    Patternhood, Correlation, and Generality: Foundations of a Peircean Theory of Patterns
    (2016-07) Aames, Jimmy Jericho; De Tienne, André; De Waal, Cornelis; Lyons, Timothy D.
    This thesis develops a general theory of patterns on the basis of the philosophy of Charles S. Peirce. The main questions with which this thesis is concerned are: what is the ontological status of patterns? In what does their reality consist in? Why does exhibiting patternhood seem to be a necessary condition for the very possibility of cognition? The development of the theory is motivated by a discussion of Ontic Structural Realism (OSR), a theory that has recently been gaining attention in analytic philosophy of science, especially in philosophy of physics. The central claim of OSR is that only patterns (structures) are real; individual objects are not real, or have only a “thin” being in some sense. In this thesis I deal mainly with the version of OSR developed by James Ladyman and Don Ross in their book Every Thing Must Go. I address two criticisms that are commonly levelled against OSR, (1) that it cannot give an adequate account of the difference between physical structure and mathematical structure, and (2) that it cannot give an adequate account of the relationship between the world and our representations of the world. I then show how Peirce’s philosophical framework, as encapsulated in his pragmatism, theory of the categories, Scholastic realism, and theory of the continuum, could provide an answer to these difficulties. OSR will also be used to illuminate an aspect of Peirce’s philosophy which I believe has not been sufficiently emphasized in the literature, namely its structuralist aspect. Specifically, it will be shown that Peirce’s philosophy leads to a worldview very similar to that of OSR, via a path of reasoning that is completely different from those standardly used to argue for OSR. This thesis as a whole is an attempt to throw light on the nature of patternhood through an elucidation and justification of this path of reasoning, which I call the alternative path to OSR.
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    Peirce and Scientific Realism
    (2022-01) Tekin, Atmaca; de Waal, Cornelis; De Tienne, André; Lyons, Timothy D.
    Scientific realism and antirealism are two main views in the philosophy of science regarding the status of unobservable entities in science and whether we have good epistemic reasons to believe that our current successful scientific theories are (approximately) true. Briefly, the former claims that our scientific theories are (approximately) true and unobservable entities these scientific theories postulate exist. On the other hand, the latter claims that we do not have good epistemic reasons to believe that our scientific theories are (approximately) true and that unobservable entities our scientific theories postulate exist. The scientific realism has two primary tenets, one axiological (i.e., science should seek truth) and the other epistemological (namely, our current successful theories are (approximately) true). In this thesis, the issue has been examined from standpoint of the account of Peirce’s philosophy of science, more accurately based on his understanding of reality, truth and basic idealism. In the first chapter, I outline the main points of the debate from the perspectives of both sides. In the second chapter, I give reasons why the scientific realists’ argument is not convincing. In the third chapter, I attempt to draw an accurate picture of the account of Peirce’s views on the nature of scientific theories. In the last chapter, I make a case for scientific realism from the Peircean account of philosophy of science. I have claimed why the current debate cannot be settled without accepting a kind of Peirce's basic idealism and his understanding of reality. I think both scientific realists and antirealists accept a kind of naïve realism. This is the main reason why it is not possible to settle the debate from their standpoints. In order to overcome this issue, I attempt to develop a more sophisticated realism based on Peirce’s understanding of reality, truth and basic idealism.
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    Systematicity theory meets Socratic scientific realism: the systematic quest for truth
    (Springer, 2018) Lyons, Timothy D.; Philosophy, School of Liberal Arts
    Systematicity theory—developed and articulated by Paul Hoyningen-Huene—and scientific realism constitute separate encompassing and empirical accounts of the nature of science. Standard scientific realism asserts the axiological thesis that science seeks truth and the epistemological thesis that we can justifiably believe our successful theories at least approximate that aim. By contrast, questions pertaining to truth are left “outside” systematicity theory’s “intended scope” (21); the scientific realism debate is “simply not” its “focus” (173). However, given the continued centrality of that debate in the general philosophy of science literature, and given that scientific realists also endeavor to provide an encompassing empirical account of science, I suggest that these two contemporary accounts have much to offer one another. Overlap for launching a discussion of their relations can be found in Nicholas Rescher’s work. Following through on a hint from Rescher, I embrace a non-epistemic, purely axiological scientific realism—what I have called, Socratic scientific realism. And, bracketing the realist’s epistemological thesis, I put forward the axiological tenet of scientific realism as a needed supplement to systematicity theory. There are two broad components to doing this. First, I seek to make clear that axiological realism and systematicity theory accord with one another. Toward that end, after addressing Hoyningen-Huene’s concerns about axiological analysis, I articulate a refined axiological realist meta-hypothesis: it is, in short, that the end toward which scientific inquiry is directed is an increase in a specific subclass of true claims. I then identify a key feature of scientific inquiry, not generally flagged explicitly, that I take to stand as shared terrain for the two empirical meta-hypotheses. And I argue that this feature can be informatively accounted for by my axiological meta-hypothesis. The second broad component goes beyond mere compatibility between the two positions: I argue that, in want of a systematic account of science, we are prompted to find an end toward which scientific inquiry is directed that is deeper than what systematicity theory offers. Specifically, I argue that my refined axiological realist meta-hypothesis is required to both explain and justify key dimensions of systematicity in science. To the quick question, what is it that the scientific enterprise is systematically doing? My quick answer is that it is systematically seeking to increase a particular subclass of true claims.