Microaggressions are hypothesized to play a causal role in undesirable population effects such as racial health gaps, but the mechanisms through which this occurs are not yet well understood. I call inquiry about these mechanisms the “explanatory project.” I suggest that the explanatory project has been hindered by microaggression concepts tailored to be applicable under conditions of lived uncertainty, rather than to facilitate understanding of structural causes. I defend a pluralist, structural account of microaggressions from objections by Regina Rini that, while appropriate for ethical projects, do not apply to the explanatory project.

This article addresses problems with a defensive turn in discussions of science and Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing. Philosophers and practitioners of science have focused recent discussions on coarse-grained questions of demarcation, epistemic parity, and identity—asking questions such as “Is Indigenous knowledge science?” Using representative examples from Aotearoa New Zealand, we expose rampant ambiguities in these arguments, and show that this combative framing can overlook what is at stake. We provide a framework for analyzing these problems and suggest better ways forward.

Transdisciplinary research knits together knowledge from diverse epistemic communities in addressing social-environmental challenges, such as biodiversity loss, climate crises, food insecurity, and public health. This article reflects on the roles of philosophy of science in transdisciplinary research while focusing on Indigenous and other subjugated forms of knowledge. We offer a critical assessment of demarcationist approaches in philosophy of science and outline a constructive alternative of transdisciplinary philosophy of science. While a focus on demarcation obscures the complex relations between epistemic communities, transdisciplinary philosophy of science provides resources for meeting epistemic and political challenges of collaborative knowledge production.

We consider some of the epistemic benefits of exploring “theory space” in the context of modifications of general relativity with intended applications in cosmology. We show how studying modifications of general relativity can help in assessing the robustness of empirical inferences, particularly in inaccessible regimes. We also discuss challenges to sharply distinguishing apparently distinct directions in theory space.

The goal of this article is to analyze the role of convention in interpreting physical theories—in particular, how the distinction between the conventional and the nonconventional interacts with judgments of equivalence. We will begin with a discussion of what, if anything, distinguishes those statements of a theory that might be dubbed “conventions.” This will lead us to consider the conventions that are not themselves part of a theory’s content but are rather applied to the theory in interpreting it. Finally, we will consider the idea that what conventions to adopt might, itself, be regarded as a matter of convention.

The problem of quantity is the problem of identifying what about the physical world explains why it can be so well represented with mathematical entities. I introduce “quantitative primitivism,” the dominant position in the literature, which offers only a partial solution to the problem of quantity. I argue that a reductive account of quantitativeness provides a full solution to the problem and describe two reductive accounts in the literature. I discuss some of the unique metaphysical consequences of reductive accounts of quantity, including a novel dissolution to the long-standing absolutist–comparativist debate.

Teleparallel gravity, an empirically equivalent counterpart to general relativity, represents the influence of gravity using torsional forces. It raises questions about theory interpretation and underdetermination. To better understand the torsional forces of teleparallel gravity, we consider a context in which forces are better understood: classical spacetimes. We propose a method of incorporating torsion into the classical spacetime context that yields a classical theory of gravity with a closed temporal metric and spacetime torsion. We then prove a result analogous to the Trautman degeometrization theorem: that every model of Newton–Cartan theory gives rise, non-uniquely, to a model of this theory.

The original architects of the representational theory of measurement interpreted their formalism operationally and explicitly acknowledged that some aspects of their representations are conventional. We argue that the conventional elements of the representations afforded by the theory require careful scrutiny as one moves toward a more metaphysically robust interpretation by showing that there is a sense in which the very number system one uses to represent a physical quantity such as mass or length is conventional. This result undermines inferences which impute structure from the numerical representational structure to the quantity it is used to represent.

There is a mysterious twofold change in Du Châtelet’s position on Newtonian attraction: from acceptance thereof as an explanatory principle in Essai sur l’optique (ca. 1738–39), to rejection in the 1740 Institutions, and returning to acceptance again in her Commentary (1756) to Newton’s Principia. In this article, I suggest that we turn to the 1742 Institutions for answers. There, Du Châtelet introduces physical explanation and maintains that we can appeal to certain physical qualities (such as attraction) for explanatory force. Using this case study, I argue that the scholarship will benefit greatly from turning to the 1742 edition going forward.

I examine three arguments that purport to show that connectionist, associationist architectures cannot achieve key features of human thought. Hume anticipated each of these three arguments and provided a unified strategy for responding to each, the “externalist gambit.” On this account, external natural language provides the necessary structure for associationist systems to achieve those features of thought that their opponents take them to lack. The externalist gambit provides a promising avenue for today’s defenders of connectionism about the human mind.

Epistemic stances are collections of attitudes, values, aims, and policies relevant to assessing evidence, eventuating in belief or agnosticism regarding the output of scientific investigations. If, in some cases, conflicting stances promoting scientific realism and antirealism, respectively, are rationally permissible, this would seem to undermine the possibility of resolving certain debates between realists and antirealists. In this article I reply to two concerns about this conception of stances, to the effect that: (1) a stance underlying realism is, in fact, rationally obligatory for realists, given certain natural assumptions; and (2) this sort of permissivism would validate pseudoscience and science denialism.