BJPS

25/07/2025

Just accepted: Jack Himelright , ''Reassessing the Explanatory Indispensability Argument: A Bayesian Defense of Nominalism'

Read the full paper here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/737197

ABSTRACT. Advocates of the explanatory indispensability argument for Platonism say two things. First, we should believe in the parts of our best scientific theories that are explanatory. Second, mathematical objects play an explanatory role within those theories. I give a two-part response. I start by using a Bayesian framework to argue that the standards many have proposed must be met to show that mathematical objects are dispensable are too demanding. In particular, nominalistic theories may be more probable than Platonistic ones even if they are extremely complicated by comparison. This is true even if there are genuine cases of mathematical explanation in science. The point made here is a matter of principle, holding regardless of how one assesses nominalistic theories already on offer. I then examine my recent nominalization of second-order impure set theory in light of the correct, laxer standards. I make a tentative case that my nominalistic theory meets those standards, which would undermine the explanatory indispensability argument. While this case is provisional, I aim to bring attention to my nominalization and others in light of the revised standards for demonstrating dispensability.

24/07/2025

Just accepted: Julien Nicolas Tricard, 'Playing Ozma Games with Kibble Balances: A New Defence of Absolutism about Mass'

Read the full paper here:
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/737047

ABSTRACT. This paper engages with the metaphysical debate between absolutism and comparativism about mass, addressing the question of whether massive objects possess their masses intrinsically (as absolute magnitudes) or only relationally, through their mass relations to other objects. In the current debate, comparativists argue that the dimensional nature of mass renders absolute magnitudes undetectable and redundant, forcing absolutists to rely on arguments about the dynamic relevance of absolute masses in physical laws. I advance a novel defence of absolutism by appealing to contemporary metrology, particularly the role of the Kibble balance and the redefinition of the kilogram in terms of the fixed numerical value of Planck’s constant. I argue that absolute masses are metrically detectable, independently of their dynamic relevance, thereby challenging the claim that dimensional quantities are kinematically comparative. Additionally, I provide a solution to the Ozma game, showing how the meaning of our mass values (like ‘1 kg’) can be communicated to extraterrestrial intelligences through the operational universality of the new SI definitions.

18/07/2025

Just accepted:
'Natural Kinds and Machine Learning: The Case of Male and Female Brains'
– Zina Ward

Read it here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/737413

ABSTRACT. Neuroscientists are at loggerheads about whether to draw a distinction between the male and female brain. The controversy is primarily rooted not in disagreement about first-order empirical results, but in conflicting assumptions about what will establish a difference between two brain types. Understanding these commitments through the lens of philosophical work on natural kinds, I show that both sides of the debate adopt implausible assumptions about kindhood. Relying on a framework provided by cluster theories of natural kinds, I provide a philosophically and empirically motivated argument against the view that male and female brains are natural kinds. Because machine learning methods play an increasingly important role in this debate, my argument has implications for machine learning in science: we should not conflate supervised classification with scientific classification, though some unsupervised methods might help us identify natural kinds if applied with caution.

17/07/2025

Just accepted:
'The Impossibility of Non-manipulable Probability Aggregation’
– Franz Dietrich & Christian List

Read it here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/736599

ABSTRACT. A probability aggregation rule assigns to each profile of probability functions across a group of individuals (representing their individual probability assignments to some propositions) a collective probability function (representing the group’s probability assignment). The rule is ‘non-manipulable’ if no group member can manipulate the collective probability for any proposition in the direction of his or her own probability by misrepresenting his or her probability function (‘strategic voting’). We show that, except in trivial cases, no probability aggregation rule satisfying two very mild conditions (non-dictatorship and consensus preservation) is non-manipulable.

16/07/2025

Just accepted:
‘Actual Causation and Minimality’
– Rafael De Clercq, Jiji Zhang & Jingzhi Fang

Read it here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/735831

ABSTRACT. Several of the most prominent theories of actual causation make use of a minimality condition to prevent irrelevant elements from being tacked onto a cause so that the conjunction or sum passes for a cause. Focusing on one theory in particular—the influential Halpern–Pearl definition of actual causation—we argue that either the minimality condition or its rationale ought to be revised. We produce proposals showing that both are live options and demonstrate their potential usefulness within the larger family of counterfactual approaches to causation.

14/07/2025

Just accepted:
‘In Search of Cosmic Time: Complete Observables and the Clock Hypothesis’
– Nicola Bamonti & Karim Thébault

Read it here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/736951

ABSTRACT. This article considers a new and deeply challenging aspect of the problem of time in the context of cosmology, drawing on the work of Thiemann. Thiemann argues for a radical response to the cosmic problem of time that requires us to modify the classical Friedmann equations. By contrast, we offer a conservative proposal for the solution of the problem, by bringing together ideas from the contemporary literature regarding reference frames, complete observables, and the model-based account of time measurement. On our approach, we must reinterpret our criteria of observability in light of the clock hypothesis and the model-based account of measurement in order to preserve the Friedmann equations as the dynamical equations for the universe.

11/07/2025

Just accepted:
‘Learning to Forget’
Jeffrey Barrett & Christian Torsell

Read it here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/736948

ABSTRACT. There is no canonical way to learn, but very often one form of learning works better than another for a particular task. Sometimes the best way to learn involves some form of forgetting. Agents learning to play a Lewis–Skyrms signalling game typically do better than simple reinforcement learners if they learn by means of reinforcement with punishment, a learning dynamic that implements a form of selective forgetting. But the level of punishment that does best will depend on the details of the game. We address this tuning problem by considering how an agent who learns by simple reinforcement might learn how to learn more reliably by learning the best way to forget.

10/07/2025

If you’re heading to the BSPS Annual Conference next week, come along to our meet the editors session Wednesday lunchtime. Discover the one weird trick to getting your paper published* that editors hate**

*Be really really good
**We love it

https://www.thebsps.org/news/2025-glasgow

The BSPS Annual Conference takes place on 15-17 July 2025 at the University of Glasgow

10/07/2025

Just accepted:
‘Explaining Mechanism–Task Fit in Neuroscience’
– Aliya Rumana

Read it here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/736123

ABSTRACT: Marr famously argued that computational theory (analysis at the computational level) was required to explain both ‘what the device does and why’. In a series of articles, Shagrir and Bechtel argue that computational theory explains how certain mechanisms are appropriate for certain tasks by showing that identity holds between the corresponding mechanisms and the tasks at an abstract, computational level of description. Call this the ‘computational identity account’ of ‘mechanism–task fit’. Inspired by their work, I propose an alternative account that grounds mechanism–task fit in constraint satisfaction, where the mechanism is appropriate to the task because the mechanism’s properties satisfy all the task-related constraints. I use retinal edge detection and sound localization as two cases to demonstrate that constraint satisfaction may be a better way to ground mechanism–task fit than identity. This account of mechanism–task fit isn’t confined to the computational level of description, so I describe it as ‘task-fitting explanation’ rather than computational theory. I argue that task-fitting explanation is a species of constraint-based explanation: it is interested in which features of a mechanism make possible above-chance correct task performance for the mechanism. As such, it is ‘modally complementary ’to mechanistic explanation, which, I argue, is interested in which activities done by a mechanism’s parts make actual competent task performance for the mechanism.

09/07/2025

Just accepted:
‘A Puzzle About General Covariance and Gauge’
– Eleanor March & James Weatherall

Read it here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/736478

ABSTRACT: We consider two simple criteria for when a physical theory should be said to be ‘generally covariant’, and we argue that these criteria are not met by Yang–Mills theory, even on geometric formulations of that theory. The reason, we show, is that the bundles encountered in Yang–Mills theory are not natural bundles; instead, they are gauge-natural. We then show how these observations relate to previous arguments about the significance of solder forms in assessing disanalogies between general relativity and Yang–Mills theory. We conclude by suggesting that general covariance is really about functoriality.

08/07/2025

New from the BJPS Review of Books: Noel Swanson reviews The Non-fundamentality of Spacetime, by Kian Salimkhani

Read it here:

Noel Swanson reviews The Non-fundamentality of Spacetime, by Kian Salimkhani

07/07/2025

The BSPS annual conference is almost upon us. Check out the full programme here

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