Of Ends and Means

Means-Ends Epistemology

This paper describes the cornerstones of a means-ends approach to the philosophy of inductive inference. I begin with a fallibilist ideal of convergence to the truth in the long run, or in the “limit of inquiry”. I determine which methods are optimal for attaining additional epistemic aims (notably fast and steady convergence to the truth). Means-ends vindications of (a version of) Occam’s Razo...

Means, Ends and Medical Care

Ends to a means

Most of the familiar garden birds we see all the time have a very short life: just a few years for the commoner species. But some birds have the potential for a very long life and a new study has looked at chromosomal status that may be linked with longevity. A team of international scientists headed by Pat Monahan at the University of Glasgow report, in Proceedings B of the Royal Society (publ...

Ends and Means, Values and Virtues

Philosopher: It has taken me a while but I think I now see what social software is trying to get at. Its ultimate driving force seems to be a desire to help solve social problems. For this, one should of course understand these problems and get a good grasp of their structure. So, and that’s the second element, we focus on the analysis of such social problems. Finally, the way of going about in...

Parental precaution: neurobiological means and adaptive ends.

Humans invest precious reproductive resources in just a few offspring, who remain vulnerable for an extended period of their lifetimes relative to other primates. Therefore, it is likely that humans evolved a rich precautionary psychology that assists in the formidable task of protecting offspring. In this review, we integrate precautionary behaviors during pregnancy and postpartum with the ada...