This article presents a distinct sense of ‘mechanism’, which I call the functional sense of mechanism. According to this sense, mechanisms serve functions, and this fact places substantive restrictions on the kinds of system activities ‘for which’ there can be a mechanism. On this view, there are no mechanisms for pathology; pathologies result from disrupting mechanisms for functions. Second, on this sense, natural selection is probably not a mechanism for evolution because it does not serve a function. After distinguishing this sense from similar explications of ‘mechanism’, I argue that it is ubiquitous in biology and has valuable epistemic benefits.

Highly idealized models, such as the Hawk-Dove game, are pervasive in biological theorizing. We argue that the process and motivation that leads to the introduction of various idealizations into these models is not adequately captured by Michael Weisberg’s taxonomy of three kinds of idealization. Consequently, a fourth kind of idealization is required, which we call hypothetical pattern idealization. This kind of idealization is used to construct models that aim to be explanatory but do not aim to be explanations.

Modularity is one of the most important concepts used to articulate a theory of cognitive architecture. Over the last 30 years, the debate in many areas of the cognitive sciences and in philosophy of psychology about what modules are, and to what extent our cognitive architecture is modular, has made little progress. After providing a diagnosis of this lack of progress, this article suggests a remedy. It argues that the theoretical framework of network science can be brought to bear on the traditional modularity debate, facilitating our progress in articulating a good theory of the human cognitive architecture.

Fitelson demonstrates that the validity of various central arguments within Bayesian confirmation theory depends on which confirmation measure is adopted. This article adds to the results set out by Fitelson, expanding on them in two principal respects. First, it considers more confirmation measures. Second, it shows that there are important arguments within Bayesian confirmation theory and that there is no confirmation measure that renders them all valid. Finally, the article reviews the ramifications that this “strengthened problem of measure sensitivity” has for Bayesian confirmation theory and discusses whether it points at pluralism about notions of confirmation.

In this article, I argue that mapping-based accounts of applications cannot be comprehensive and must be supplemented by analyses of other, qualitatively different, forms of application. I support these claims by providing a detailed discussion of the application of mathematics to a problem of election design that is prominent in social choice theory.

I discuss two ways of justifying reflection principles. First, I propose that an undogmatic reading of dynamic Dutch book arguments provides them with a sound foundation. Second, I show also that minimizing expected inaccuracy leads to a novel argument for reflection principles. The required inaccuracy measures comprise a natural class of functions that can be derived from a generalization of a condition known as propriety or immodesty. This shows that reflection principles are an essential feature not just of consistent degrees of belief but also of degrees of belief that approximate truth.

The paradox of Wigner’s friend challenges the objectivity of quantum theory. A pragmatist interpretation can meet this challenge by judicious appeal to decoherence. Quantum theory provides situated agents with resources for predicting and explaining what happens in the physical world—not conscious observations of it. Even in bizarre Wigner’s friend scenarios, differently situated agents agree on the objective content of physical magnitude statements while, normally, quantum Darwinism permits agents equal observational access to their truth. Quantum theory has nothing to say about conscious experiences. But it does prompt us to reexamine the significance of everyday claims about the physical world.

Configuration space representations have utility in physics but are not generally taken to have ontological significance. We examine one salient reason to think configuration space representations fail to be relevant in determining the fundamental ontology of a physical theory. This is based on a claim due to several authors (Allori, Dürr, Goldstein, Tumulka, and Zanghì) that fundamental theories must have primitive ontologies. This claim would,if correct, have broad ramifications for how to read metaphysics from physical theory. We survey ways of understanding the argument for a primitive ontology in order to assess the case against configuration space realism.

Halvorson argues that the semantic view of theories leads to absurdities. Glymour shows how to inoculate the semantic view against Halvorson’s criticisms, namely, by making it into a syntactic view of theories. I argue that this modified semantic-syntactic view cannot do the philosophical work that the original “language-free” semantic view was supposed to do.