@incollection {Wieland2014, title = {Internalism Does Entail Scepticism}, booktitle = {Logic, Reasoning, and Rationality}, series = {Logic, Argumentation \& Reasoning}, volume = {5}, year = {2014}, pages = {247-260}, publisher = {Springer Netherlands}, abstract = {

Let Internalism be the view that our inferences are justified depending on whether we have knowledge of the logical rules on which they are based, and Scepticism the view that none of our inferences are justified. Boghossian has shown that Internalism entails Scepticism, and Philie has attempted to block the entailment by invoking an assumption on rationality. In this contribution, I enforce the entailment claim and argue that Philie’s solution misses the target: Internalism does entail Scepticism.

}, keywords = {Internalism, Knowledge, Regress, Rule, Scepticism}, isbn = {978-94-017-9010-9}, doi = {10.1007/978-94-017-9011-6_13}, author = {Wieland, Jan Willem}, editor = {Weber, Erik and Wouters, Dietlinde and Meheus, Joke} } @article {3134040, title = {The ICE-theory of technical functions}, journal = {Metascience}, volume = {22}, number = {1}, year = {2013}, pages = {23{\textendash}44}, issn = {0815-0796}, doi = {10.1007/s11016-012-9642-9}, author = {Weber, Erik and Reydon, Thomas and Boon, Mieke and Houkes, Wybo and Vermaas, Pieter} } @article {4118013, title = {Inferential explanations in biology}, journal = {Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences}, volume = {44}, year = {2013}, pages = {356{\textendash}364}, abstract = {

Among philosophers of science, there is now a widespread agreement that the DN model of explanation is poorly equipped to account for explanations in biology. Rather than identifying laws, so the consensus goes, researchers explain biological capacities by constructing a model of the underlying mechanism. We think that the dichotomy between DN explanations and mechanistic explanations is misleading. In this article, we argue that there are cases in which biological capacities are explained without construct- ing a model of the underlying mechanism. Although these explanations do not conform to Hempel’s DN model (they do not deduce the explanandum from laws of nature), they do invoke more or less stable generalisations. Because they invoke generalisations and have the form of an argument, we call them inferential explanations. We support this claim by considering two examples of explanations of biological capacities: pigeon navigation and photoperiodism. Next, we will argue that these non-mechanistic expla- nations are crucial to biology in three ways: (i) sometimes, they are the only thing we have (there is no alternative available), (ii) they are heuristically useful, and (iii) they provide genuine understanding and so are interesting in their own right. In the last sections we discuss the relation between types of explanations and types of experiments and situate our views within some relevant debates on explanatory power and explanatory virtues.

}, issn = {1369-8486}, author = {Gervais, Raoul and Weber, Erik} } @incollection {1223153, title = {The IARC and mechanistic evidence}, booktitle = {Causality in the Sciences}, year = {2011}, pages = {91{\textendash}109}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, abstract = {

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is an organization which seeks to identify the causes of human cancer. For each agent, such as betel quid or Human Papillomaviruses, they review the available evidence deriving from epidemiological studies, animal experiments and information about mechanisms (and other data). The evidence of the different groups is combined such that an overall assessment of the carcinogenicity of the agent in question is obtained. In this paper, we critically review IARC{\textquoteright}s carcinogenicity evaluations. First we show that serious objections can be raised against their criteria and procedures - more specifically regarding the role of mechanistic knowledge in establishing causal claims. Our arguments are based on the problems of confounders, of the assessment of the temporal stability of carcinogenic relations, viz. How we should treat the carcinogenicity evaluations that were based on the current procedures. After showing that this question is important we argue that an overall dismissal of the current evaluations would be too radical. Instead, we argue in favour of a stepwise re-evaluation of the current findings.

}, isbn = {9780199574131}, author = {Leuridan, Bert and Weber, Erik}, editor = {McKay Illari, Phyllis and Russo, Federica and Williamson, Jon} } @article {1890961, title = {Indispensability arguments in favour of reductive explanations}, journal = {Journal for General Philosophy of Science}, volume = {42}, number = {1}, year = {2011}, pages = {33{\textendash}46}, abstract = {

Instances of explanatory reduction are often advocated on metaphysical grounds; given that the only real things in the world are subatomic particles and their interaction, we have to try to explain everything in terms of the laws of physics. In this paper, we show that explanatory reduction cannot be defended on metaphysical grounds. Nevertheless, indispensability arguments for reductive explanations can be developed, taking into account actual scientific practice and the role of epistemic interests. Reductive explanations might be indispensable to address some epistemic interest answering a specific explanation-seeking question in the most accurate, adequate and efficient way. Just like explanatory pluralists often advocate the indispensability of higher levels of explanation pointing at the pragmatic value of the explanatory information obtained on these higher levels, we argue that explanatory reduction {\textendash} traditionally understood as the contender of pluralism {\textendash} can be defended in a similar way. The pragmatic value reductionist, lower level explanations might have in the biomedical sciences and the social sciences is illustrated by some case studies.

}, issn = {0925-4560}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10838-011-9141-5}, author = {Van Bouwel, Jeroen and Weber, Erik and De Vreese, Leen} } @incollection {386241, title = {INUS Conditions}, booktitle = {Encyclopedia of statistics in behavioral science}, volume = {2}, year = {2005}, pages = {955{\textendash}958}, publisher = {John Wiley \& Sons}, isbn = {0470860804}, author = {Horsten, Leon and Weber, Erik} } @article {109726, title = {Introduction.}, journal = {FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE}, volume = {3}, year = {1999}, pages = {231{\textendash}234}, issn = {1233-1821}, author = {Weber, Erik} } @article {241633, title = {The indirect practical functions of explanations}, journal = {PHILOSOPHICA (GENT)}, volume = {51}, number = {1}, year = {1993}, pages = {105{\textendash}124}, issn = {0379-8402}, author = {Weber, Erik} } @article {WE_In, title = {Introduction}, journal = {Philosophica}, volume = {51}, number = {1}, year = {1993}, pages = {5{\textendash}7}, author = {Weber, Erik} }