Minimal assumption derivation of a weak Clauser-Horne inequality

According to Bell's theorem a large class of hidden-variable models obeying Bell's notion of local causality (LC) conflict with the predictions of quantum mechanics. Recently, a Bell-type theorem has been proven using a weaker notion of LC, yet assuming the existence of perfectly correlated event types. Here we present a similar Bell-type theorem without this latter assumption. The derived inequality differs from the Clauser-Horne inequality by some small correction terms, which render it less constraining.

Factors influencing the quality of the consultation process

Sport psychology services have become to be an important brick stone when building athletic success. The strive for better performance is not only a characteristic of athletes, but of the whole support system in top level sport including sport psychology. Sport psychology consultants are permanently challenged to deliver highest quality services to their clients if they do not want to lose their contracts. Sport psychologists are continuously improving their consulting skills, learn new intervention techniques, read scientific papers and, last but not least, gain experience by accumulating hours of deliberate practice (Ericsson) in sport psychology. Even with increasing experience, the consultant has a certain number of degrees of freedom and has to make a series of decisions about how he or she wants to work. Quality, however, depends on a number of issues, and not all of them are under direct control of the consultant. It is argued that, in order for these choices being good, the following factors - among others - must be considered: Who is seeking assistance? What are the "issues and problems" (Gardner & Moore, 2006) the athlete is confronted with? What kind of approaches do fit with the client's need? Who is the 'client' the sport psychologist is supposed to work with? If it is a team, is the sport psychologist supposed to work with a number of individuals, with the coach, or with the whole system? Where are the boundaries of the system? What is the role of the sport psychologist in the sport system? All these issues directly affect the process and outcome quality of the sport psychology consultant. A sound theoretical basis, in connection with a distinct philosophy of the intervention, is an important cornerstone for the quality of sport psychology consultation.

Statistical Methods and the Meaning of Probabilities. A Philosopher Looks at Statistics

The talk starts out with a short introduction to the philosophy of probability. I highlight the need to interpret probabilities in the sciences and motivate objectivist accounts of probabilities. Very roughly, according to such accounts, ascriptions of probabilities have truth-conditions that are independent of personal interests and needs. But objectivist accounts are pointless if they do not provide an objectivist epistemology, i.e., if they do not determine well-defined methods to support or falsify claims about probabilities. In the rest of the talk I examine recent philosophical proposals for an objectivist methodology. Most of them take up ideas well-known from statistics. I nevertheless find some proposals incompatible with objectivist aspirations.

Algebra of Classical Theoretical Term Reductions in the Sciences

An elementary algebra identifies conceptual and corresponding applicational limitations in John Kemeny and Paul Oppenheim’s (K-O) 1956 model of theoretical reduction in the sciences. The K-O model was once widely accepted, at least in spirit, but seems afterward to have been discredited, or in any event superceeded. Today, the K-O reduction model is seldom mentioned, except to clarify when a reduction in the Kemeny-Oppenheim sense is not intended. The present essay takes a fresh look at the basic mathematics of K-O comparative vocabulary theoretical term reductions, from historical and philosophical standpoints, as a contribution to the history of the philosophy of science. The K-O theoretical reduction model qualifies a theory replacement as a successful reduction when preconditions of explanatory adequacy and comparable systematicization are met, and there occur fewer numbers of theoretical terms identified as replicable syntax types in the most economical statement of a theory’s putative propositional truths, as compared with the theoretical term count for the theory it replaces. The challenge to the historical model developed here, to help explain its scope and limitations, involves the potential for equivocal theoretical meanings of multiple theoretical term tokens of the same syntactical type.

Expanding Our Grasp: Causal Knowledge and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives

I argue that scientific realism, insofar as it is only committed to those scientific posits of which we have causal knowledge, is immune to Kyle Stanford’s argument from unconceived alternatives. This causal strategy (previously introduced, but not worked out in detail, by Anjan Chakravartty) is shown not to repeat the shortcomings of previous realist responses to Stanford’s argument. Furthermore, I show that the notion of causal knowledge underlying it can be made sufficiently precise by means of conceptual tools recently introduced into the debate on scientific realism. Finally, I apply this strategy to the case of Jean Perrin’s experimental work on the atomic hypothesis, disputing Stanford’s claim that the problem of unconceived alternatives invalidates a realist interpretation of this historical episode.