Inflationary cosmology won a large following on the basis of the claim that it solves various problems that beset the standard big bang model. We argue that these problems concern not the empirical adequacy of the standard model but rather the nature of the explanations it offers. Furthermore, inflationary cosmology has not been able to deliver on its proposed solutions without offering models which are increasingly complicated and contrived, which depart more and more from the standard model it was supposed to improve upon, and which sever the connection between cosmology and particle physics that initially made the inflationary paradigm so attractive. Nevertheless, inflationary cosmology remains a promising research program, not least because it offers an explanation of the origin of the density perturbations that seeded the formation of galaxies and other cosmic structures. Tests of this explanation are underway and may settle the issue of whether inflation played an important role in the early universe.

Hempel's paradox of the ravens arises from the inconsistency of three prima facie plausible principles of confirmation. This paper uses Camapian inductive logic to (a) identify which of the principles is false, (b) give insight into why this principle is false, and (c) identify a true principle that is sufficiently similar to the false one that failure to distinguish the two might explain why the false principle is prima facie plausible. This solution to the paradox is compared with a variety of other responses and is shown to differ from all of them.

I present an attempt at an explication of the ecological theory of interspecific competition, including its explanatory role in community ecology and evolutionary biology. The account given is based on the idea that law-like statements play an important role in scientific theories of this kind. I suggest that the principle of competitive exclusion is such a law, and that it is evolutionary invariant. The principle's empirical status is defended and implications for the ongoing debates on the existence of biological laws are discussed.

Mark Wilson, in his 1985 paper entitled “What Is This Thing Called ‘Pain‘?: The Philosophy of Science Behind the Contemporary Debate,” proposed an account of physicalism that departs significantly from standard approaches. One of the main points of his paper was to explain the flaws in arguments claiming that psychological properties cannot be shown to be physical because of their functional nature. However, the positive proposal that Wilson makes in this article bears further examination. I argue that it not only resolves many problems that have grown up around the topic of physicalism, but that the proposal itself should make us radically rethink some important philosophical questions, especially those concerning explanation and property identification.

This paper examines Descartes' problematic relational theory of motion, especially when viewed within the context of his dynamics, the Cartesian natural laws. The work of various commentators on Cartesian motion is also surveyed, with particular emphasis placed upon the recent important texts of Garber and Des Chene. In contrast to the methodology of most previous interpretations, however, this essay employs a modern “spacetime” approach to the problem. By this means, the role of dynamics in Descartes' theory, which has often been neglected in favor of kinematic factors, is shown to be central to finding a solution to the puzzle of Cartesian motion.

We argue that Brandon and Carson's (1996) “The Indeterministic Character of Evolutionary Theory” fails to identify any indeterminism that would require evolutionary theory to be a statistical or probabilistic theory. Specifically, we argue that (1) their demonstration of a mechanism by which quantum indeterminism might “percolate up” to the biological level is irrelevant; (2) their argument that natural selection is indeterministic because it is inextricably connected with drift fails to join the issue with determinism; and (3) their view that experimental methodology in botany assumes indeterminism is both false and incompatible with the commitment to discoverable causal mechanisms underlying biological processes. We remain convinced that the probabilism of the theory of evolution is epistemically, not ontologically, motivated.

Bas van Fraassen has recently argued for a “dissolution” of Hilary Putnam's well-known model-theoretic argument. In this paper I argue that, as it stands, van Fraassen's reply to Putnam is unsuccessful. Nonetheless, it suggests the form a successful response might take.

Against Hellman's (1997) recent claims, I argue that Bayesianism is unable to explain the value of generally successful aspects of scientific methodology, viz., deflecting blame from well-confirmed theories onto auxiliaries and preferring more-varied data. Such an explanation would require not just objectification of priors, but a reason to believe priors will generally fall on values that justify the practice. Given the track record on the objectification problem, adding further conditions on priors merely makes the Bayesian's problems even worse.