David S. Oderberg
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Author Swipe
Miracles and the wooden leg problem Open
The famous Catholic pilgrimage site at Lourdes, France, until fairly recently displayed hundreds of discarded crutches as testament to miraculous cures. It has, though, never displayed a wooden leg. Hence the Wooden Leg Problem (WLP) for b…
Mistakes in Action: On Clarifying the Phenomenon of Goal-Directedness Open
Common sense tells us that biological systems are goal-directed, and yet the concept remains philosophically problematic. We propose a novel characterization of goal-directed activities as a basis for hypothesizing about and investigating …
Getting it Wrong: Biological Mistake-Making as a Cross-System, Cross-Scale Phenomenon Open
The making of mistakes by organisms and living systems generally is an underexplored way of conceptualising biology and organising experimental research. We set out an informal account of biological mistakes and why they should be taken se…
Hylemorphism, the Qualitative Problem, and the Myth of Structure Open
‘Structural hylemorphism’ holds that the concept of structure should replace the allegedly less explanatory concept of form. Adherents do not, however, give us a precise idea of what structure is meant to be, and on analysis it is difficul…
Biological Mistake Theory and the Question of Function Open
The making of mistakes by organisms and other living systems is a theoretically and empirically unifying feature of biological investigation. Mistake theory is a rigorous and experimentally productive way of understanding this widespread p…
Action, passion, power Open
The active/passive distinction, once a hallmark of classical metaphysics, has largely been discarded from contemporary thought. The revival of powers theory has not seen an equally vigorous rehabilitation of the real distinction between ac…
Biological Mistakes: What They Are and What They Mean for the Experimental Biologist Open
Organisms and other biological entities are mistake-prone: they get things wrong. The entities of pure physics, such as atoms and inorganic molecules, do not make mistakes: they do what they do according to physical law, with no room for e…
Who’s afraid of reverse mereological essentialism? Open
Whereas Mereological Essentialism is the thesis that the parts of an object are essential to it, Reverse Mereological Essentialism is the thesis that the whole is essential to its parts. Specifically—since RME is an Aristotelian doctrine—i…
Issue Information Open
A trilemma for naturalized metaphysics 1 Rogelio Miranda Vilchis Holding points of view does not amount to knowledge 11
Mistake-Making: A Theoretical Framework for Generating Research Questions in Biology, With Illustrative Application to Blood Clotting Open
It is a matter of contention whether or not a general explanatory framework for the biological sciences would be of scientific value, or whether it is even achievable. In this paper we suggest that both are the case, and we outline proposa…
Is Prime Matter Energy? Open
This paper tests the following hypothesis: that the prime matter of classical Aristotelian-Scholastic metaphysics is numerically identical to energy. Is P=E? After outlining the classical Aristotelian concept of prime matter, I provide the…
Further clarity on cooperation and morality Open
I explore the increasingly important issue of cooperation in immoral actions, particularly in connection with healthcare. Conscientious objection, especially as pertains to religious freedom in healthcare, has become a pressing issue in th…
Finality revived: powers and intentionality Open
Proponents of physical intentionality argue that the classic hallmarks of intentionality highlighted by Brentano are also found in purely physical powers. Critics worry that this idea is metaphysically obscure at best, and at worst leads t…