AAP 2026 CONFERENCE

In his small, often-neglected book Verteidigungsrede fur die Philosophie (1966), philosopher Josef Pieper offers an ingenious criticism of scientism, the thesis that all knowledge is from science. While proponents of scientism are few and far between for well-known problems such as its self-referential incoherence, science's descriptive and explanatory limits, extra-scientific assumptions, and failure to take seriously the qualitative features of reality (plus its materialist underpinnings, though not all are worried on this matter, no pun intended), nonetheless Pieper's criticism displaces both scientism and the move towards so-called "weak scientism" (the thesis that science is broader than natural sciences) and "epistemic opportunism" (the thesis that we should be optimists about scientific success). Following the demise of the Early Vienna Circle and logical positivism on what "empirical" and "observation" mean, Pieper's argument is that scientism intrinsically carries with it an implausible concept of experience, and so should be rejected. Here is the structure of the argument. Because science is an empirical (a posteriori) endeavor, it requires an intelligible notion of experience (or observation). Scientism must say that what exhausts experience is simply the natural world as experienced by our senses. However, this leaves out much of the world as we experience it, not only in its extra-scientific qualities (Schrödinger provides some entertaining examples) but also in the objects of experience themselves ("moral experience", as some call it, is a paradigmatic example). The theoretical advantages of this broad(er) account of experience (which is incompatible with scientism) are its alignment with moral-epistemic virtues like epistemic justice, as well as science's praise for dispassionate objectivity. Broader accounts of experience carry concerns as well, especially Platonic concerns about appearances versus reality, but all this shows - says Pieper - is that the philosophical act is indispensable.

This talk will explore Aristotle’s concept of tragic wonder (to thaumaston), accompanied by shock (ekplexis). Despite the enormous interest in the Poetics, not many scholars (e.g., Kyriakou 1995, 88-96; Drake 2010) have analyzed closely the importance of wonder for best tragedies. While any unusual elements can arouse wonder in Methaphysics (1.982b12-14), tragic wonder should follow a narrower pattern: a logical plot structure that turns “beyond expectation” (para tēn doxan, Poetics 9.1452a3). This preference merits a deeper analysis than it has received. We shall investigate (1) why the Homeric epic seems to be given more freedom than tragedy in constructing wondrous incidents; (2) the reasons for which even the illusion of a precise dramatic purpose is better than randomness and (3) why this paradoxical tragic structure (logical and yet culminating in shock) surpasses all the other types of plots in the Poetics. As an illustration, we will focus on a puzzling case study, Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians, which remains an Aristotelian favorite for achieving the wondrous effect despite ending with a series of illogical incidents. Finally, a sharp distinction will be drawn between the Aristotelian preferences and modern ideas of dramatic suspense.

It is generally accepted that Leibniz’s a posteriori argument which seeks to establish that force, measured by mv2 rather than mv, is conserved in the universe, has direct bearing on his broader metaphysical agenda. Leibniz is not simply introducing a new physical quantity and an argument for its conservation. He seeks to furnish a metaphysical foundation of mechanical physics.

This aim, arguably, is even more patent in his a priori argument for the conservation of actio. As Leibniz writes to De Volder, this argument is the “gate” through which one is to pass to the right metaphysics. I offer to bring into relief the metaphysical significance of the concept of intensity (intensio) in Leibniz’s a priori argument. Leibniz argues that quantity of actio is a product of intensity and extensity (extensio). Intensity is either velocity (when extensity is space) or square of velocity (when extensity is time). When taken in the latter sense, I argue, intensity receives a metaphysical inflection. Scholars have traced this notion to the medieval language of latitudo formarum. I contend that it denotes a degree of primitive activity constitutive of a singularity of substance, akin to Scotus’s notion of intensity as a degree of being’s perfection.

Psychiatry faces profound challenges a quarter of the way into the twenty-first century. Most notably, there are various philosophical disputes pertaining to a) dimensional vs. categorical models of mental disorder, b) the status of psychiatric kinds, c) states vs. traits as the central constructs of psychiatry, and d) the language of “mental disorder” vs. “mental variation.” Furthermore, these ontological disputes are accompanied by methodological disputes regarding which causal factors are most relevant to formulating generalizations about particular mental disorders. Meanwhile, the DSM faces both a validity crisis and a comorbidity crisis. These problems have motivated some in the field to formulate new research traditions– such as RDoC and HiTOP– which offer distinct and novel approaches to the subject matter of psychiatry. The central claim that I advance here is that contemporary psychiatry approximates a pre-paradigmatic Kuhnian science. I take Kuhn’s theory of scientific practice and change as an idealized model– one which abstracts away from the details of particular episodes in the histories of particular sciences, but which nevertheless presents an “ideal type” for how scientific progress often occurs. Two alternative explanations that I will address here are 1) the Human Science Explanation and 2) the Medical Science Explanation.