Attempting to understand quantum claims as describing physical systems leads to well-known difficulties. In this regard, quantum mechanics is like ethics: Attempting to understand moral claims as describing physical systems leads to (different) well-known difficulties. I argue that the quasi-realist strategy for addressing the latter issue can also help with the former. Quasi-realism starts from a nonrepresentationalist understanding of a particular type of claim and proceeds to argue that we can nevertheless recover the roles of those claims in discourse that are typical of realism. I defend a quasi-realist interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Contemporary work in bioethics presupposes a monistic view of race and a structuralist or polysemous view of racism. We aim to show that these received views are mistaken if the aim is to solve the racial health disparities problem. We argue that the theories that best enable us to solve the racial health disparities problem are a pluralist race theory and a virtue-theoretic account of racism because these theories are the best in terms of providing relevant accuracy and scope, causal explanatory power, nonsuperfluous ontological complexity, and practical utility for the task at hand.

Although functional reasoning is ubiquitous in biology, and philosophers have concentrated intensely on theorizing function naturalistically, the measurement of function has largely been ignored. Given its centrality in life science practices, there is good reason to scrutinize functional measurement in detail. I undertake a preliminary analysis of this issue by focusing on the measurement of function in the context of biomechanics to make several observations (e.g., functioning is a complex organismal property that cannot be reduced to a single measured variable) and then draw out novel consequences for debates about biological function and philosophy of science discussions of measurement.

Precision medicine has a racial health disparities problem. Proponents of precision medicine claim it can combat health inequities, but precision medicine’s therapeutic products are exorbitantly expensive, creating a natural financial barrier to any systemic intervention. Defenders have suggested resolving this problem by shifting the focus of precision medicine research toward studying the social and environmental determinants of health. Where this proposed solution has been tried, however, it has led to the “methodological genomification” of health disparities. I’ll explain how this methodological genomification works and why it presents a real threat to research on the social and environmental determinants of health.

We make the case for incorporating a notion of time into causal directed acyclic graphs (DAGs). We demonstrate that nontemporal causal DAGs are ambiguous and obstruct justification of the acyclicity assumption. Assuming that causes precede effects, causal relationships are relative to the time order, and causal DAGs require temporal qualification. We propose a formalization via composite causal variables that refer to quantities at one or multiple time points. We emphasize that the acyclicity assumption requires different justifications depending on whether the time order allows cycles. We conclude by discussing implications for the interpretation and applicability of DAGs as causal models.

One argument that all explanations are causal explanations is that no extant analysis of non-causal explanations can respect mandatory restrictions on explanation. After articulating two such restrictions, Asymmetry and Directionality, we consider how they work with respect to an explanation from network theory that applies to both social and brain networks. We argue that there are two viable ways to make sense of this explanation. One approach is broadly ontic, while another is pragmatic.

At least three meanings of the word reduction have been theorized by philosophers: epistemic, ontological, and methodological reductions. In this article, I suggest a fourth meaning to complement the literature: the axiological meaning. Theorizing reduction as an epistemic value refers to the normative pull that reduction sometimes has on scientific reasoning. The example of genetic reductionism in evolutionary biology shows that in cases of underdetermination of theory by evidence, reduction can influence theory acceptance just like other values do. I suggest that reduction, in this context, is involved in a value trade-off that also features parsimony and explanatory power.

It is a striking fact that the theories of the so-called geometric trinity of gravity can model the same gravitational effects with such diverse geometric tools as curvature, torsion, and nonmetricity. Building on Wolf et al., (2024), this contribution clarifies and critiques state-of-the-art responses to this underdetermination: conventionalism, discriminatory approaches such as Ockhamism and (arguably) functionalism, and reinterpretational common core and overarching approaches. Except for Ockhamism, no realist solution has been convincingly articulated. The future of the metric-affine structure that accommodates the geometric trinity seems to lie not in empirically equivalent reformulations but in heuristics of theory building.

I analyze the main characteristics of the hierarchy of levels of selection as manifestors of adaptation (i.e., hierarchy of levels of evolutionary organization) and show that, while ranked, this hierarchy is nonnested. Secondly, I consider a potential objection to my approach derived from Eronen and Ramsey’s (2025) claim that levels of organization should be teased apart from levels of selection. I argue that their approach rests on a failure to distinguish between interactors and manifestors of adaptation, for while a hierarchy of interactors does not correspond to a hierarchy of levels of organization, a hierarchy of manifestors does.

Philosophers of science are increasingly pursuing engaged work that addresses scientific and societal challenges. Previous scholarship has mapped forms of engagement and proposed reforms to enhance its impact. This paper examines the methodological decisions structuring engaged inquiry through qualitative content analysis of 40 peer-reviewed publications from Socially Relevant/Socially Engaged Philosophy of Science (SRPoS/SEPoS), Field Philosophy, and Philosophy in Science. I identify five recurring heuristics: problem-oriented framing, audience-tailored framing, context-sensitive integration, methodological modulation, and normative structuring. These capture higher-order methodological decisions with implications for how engaged philosophy of science is understood, evaluated, and taught.

Suppose an epistemic agent has multiple strategies available. One maximizes their expected accuracy, while another sacrifices their own expected accuracy to maximize the expected accuracy of the epistemic group. Call the latter strategy “altruistic.” The importance of epistemically altruistic agents has been highlighted in many areas of formal social epistemology. But how do some agents come to be epistemically altruistic? In this paper, I demonstrate, using a self-assembling model with simple multi-agent reinforcement learning, how a group of agents can learn to be epistemically altruistic. Counterintuitively, competitive incentives at the individual level lead to cooperative choices at the group level.

Pragmatist philosophers of science often adjudicate realism debates by (1) deploying a unified ontological principle—that is, a unified rule for making ontological assertions—to all domains of empirical inquiry, and (2) comparing the ontological assertions made by realists and antirealists to the unified principle. By considering modeling practices in evolutionary biology, I motivate an alternative approach. Pragmatists should localize ontological principles to particular ontological questions in particular domains of empirical inquiry and adjudicate between various realisms and antirealisms in a radically piecemeal fashion.

It is commonly thought that there is a crisis of public trust in scientific experts. The traditional role of the expert as passing down the knowledge required to inform the public and resolve policy disputes faces both empirical and conceptual challenges. Relying on earlier ideas of Mary Parker Follet and John Dewey concerning the roles of experts in democratic decision making, we propose an approach to rebuilding trust involving nonhierarchical communication and collaboration between experts and the public. These historical views inform a model of the coproduction of knowledge and policy decisions that can improve the contemporary situation.

Is it permissible to implicate non-epistemic values in the ‘core’ of scientific reasoning? This paper offers an appraisal of Parker’s (2024) Epistemic Projection Approach (EPA) prescribing acceptable relations between epistemic and non-epistemic values in research conduct. Non-epistemic values are granted a role in determining epistemic characteristics for a research project but are meant to be ‘screened off’ from core research decisions via epistemic projection. This discussion takes the EPA for a test drive. We identify three challenges to its conceptual and practical viability and show how EPA currently lacks resources to address them, indicating a need for further development.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is diagnosed more often in males than females. Recently, this gap has narrowed, a development often framed as overcoming gender bias. This framing rests on two problematic assumptions: (1) more equal diagnostic rates approximate truth and (2) there is such a truth in the first place. Assumption (1) is questionable because male populations are set as standard but potentially reflect overdiagnosis. Assumption (2) presumes ADHD to be a stable, discrete disease entity, which is epistemically and ontologically problematic. I argue that understanding (gender) bias here should focus on deviations from best practices and deliberative norms rather than a relation to truth.

The nodes of the ‘geometric trinity’ are: (i) general relativity (in which gravitational effects are a manifestation of spacetime curvature), (ii) the ‘teleparallel equivalent’ of general relativity (which trades spacetime curvature for torsion), and (iii) the ‘symmetric teleparallel equivalent’ of general relativity (which trades spacetime curvature for non-metricity). One popular reformulation of (iii) is ‘coincident general relativity’, but this theory has yet to receive any philosophical attention. This article aims both to introduce philosophers to coincident general relativity, and to undertake a detailed assessment of its features.

Since the days of logical empiricism, quantitative theories of degrees of confirmation have commonly been built upon the calculus of (conditional) probabilities. This work proposes a generalized account of degrees of confirmation in which probabilities naturally arise as a special case. I argue that probabilities can often—but not always—be chosen by convention out of a large class of calculi to represent degrees of confirmation.

This article distinguishes and critically evaluates a distinctive class of objection to the Argument from Inductive Risk. “Expertise-objections” question the fitness of scientists to engage in moral decision making during research, on grounds of deficiencies in scientists’ relative expertise. Such critiques bring considerations of inductive risk into important dialogue with wider literature from moral philosophy; but, once contextualized therein, it becomes apparent that expertise-objections fail to decisively prohibit the articulation of moral duties for scientists.