2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

PSA Abstracts
PSA ABSTRACTS
The following abstracts for PSA sessions appear as they were submitted, with some
minor exceptions. Due to space limitations, paragraph breaks within each abstract
were eliminated. Also, some submissions were difficult to read and some words
may have been inadvertently altered. To promote accuracy, the abstracts were
posted on the society’s Web site, and authors were encouraged to check that their
original wording survived intact. The varying length of the abstracts is due to the
fact that some authors exceeded the space allotted on the paper proposal form.
Authors were encouraged to limit their abstracts to 250 words or less. We thank
the organizers, presenters, commentators, and all those involved whose work ensures
the success of the annual meeting.
Marshall Abrams University of Chicago
Short-Run Mechanistic Probability
This paper sketches a concept of higher-level objective probability (“shortrun
mechanistic probability”, SRMP) inspired partly by a style of explanation
of relative frequencies known as the “method of arbitrary functions”. SRMP
has the potential to fulfil the need for a theory of objective probability which
has wide application at higher levels and which gives probability causal
connections to observed relative frequency (without making it equivalent to
relative frequency). Though this approach provides probabilities on a space of
event types, it does not provide probabilities for outcomes on particular trials.
This allows SRMP to coexist with lower-level probabilities that do govern
individual trials.
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Kathleen Akins Simon Fraser University
Recent Work in the Neuroscience of Vision: Some Philosophical Implications
A good deal of recent work on vision is re-shaping the traditional conception
of visual processing as providing, as Marr said, the “what and where” of the
visual world. I will present a few of these new results in the fields of colour
vision, attention, and visually-guided behaviour, results which provide
interesting case studies for our philosophical theories of representational content
and perceptual experience.
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