Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 It is often assumed that induction, deduction, Bayesian inference, and inference to the best explanation (IBE) are competing accounts of scientific reasoning. An alternative perspective is that they represent complementary modes of inference whose relative usefulness depends upon the quantity, organization, and reliability of the availableContinue reading “Excursus 058 – On the Ecology of Inference”
Author Archives: Hossein Jorjani
Excursus 057 – On Positivism
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 The term “positivism” is today employed more often by its critics than as a self-description by its proponents or alleged proponents. Consequently, discussions of positivism frequently proceed without an explicit definition of the position under criticism. In the present work, the term is therefore used inContinue reading “Excursus 057 – On Positivism”
Excursus 056 – On the Three Dimensions of an Academic Discipline
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 19 Every mature academic discipline may be distinguished into three related but conceptually separate dimensions: the discipline itself, its history, and its philosophy. Although these dimensions interact continuously, they pursue different questions and employ different methods. Failure to distinguish them often leads to confusion about the natureContinue reading “Excursus 056 – On the Three Dimensions of an Academic Discipline”
Excursus 055 – On Mental Faculties and the Division of Academic Disciplines
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 The traditional division of the human mind into faculties such as sensation, perception, memory, imagination, understanding, reason, judgment, emotion, and will should not be understood as a map of sharply separated regions within the brain. These faculties are better regarded as functional distinctions: analytical categories usedContinue reading “Excursus 055 – On Mental Faculties and the Division of Academic Disciplines”
Excursus 054 – On the Hermeneutics of “Dialectic”
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 The term dialectic has accumulated multiple and often incompatible meanings over the course of its history. Contemporary discussions frequently employ the term without specifying which dialectical tradition is intended. As a result, ideas drawn from thinkers such as Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lukács, Sartre, Adorno, Gurvitch, Bhaskar,Continue reading “Excursus 054 – On the Hermeneutics of “Dialectic””
Excursus 053 – On the Identity of Scientific and Philosophical Theories
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 Scientific and philosophical theories naturally evolve. Their concepts are refined, empirical claims revised, and new problems incorporated. The resulting continuity raises an important methodological question: at what point does a revised theory become a different theory? The identity of a theory cannot be reduced to itsContinue reading “Excursus 053 – On the Identity of Scientific and Philosophical Theories”
Excursus 052 – On the Retrospective Expansion of Historical Concepts
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 Concepts are often coined to describe particular historical forms. As their explanatory success increases, they tend to expand retrospectively until they encompass earlier phenomena sharing only some of the defining characteristics of the original concept. Such expansion may be analytically useful, provided it is recognized asContinue reading “Excursus 052 – On the Retrospective Expansion of Historical Concepts”
Excursus 051 – On Capital and Capitalism
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 The existence of capital does not by itself imply the existence of capitalism. Merchants, money-lenders, investors, commercial enterprises, markets, and private property existed in antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages. Yet these activities formed only one component of economies whose dominant productive sectors remained agriculture, handicrafts,Continue reading “Excursus 051 – On Capital and Capitalism”
Excursus 050 – On Scientific Growth
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 The diversification of scientific disciplines may profitably be compared, with appropriate caution, to the diversification of biological species. The analogy is structural rather than mechanistic. Scientific disciplines do not reproduce biologically, yet they undergo recognizable processes of divergence, partial isolation, specialization, hybridization, and, occasionally, convergence. TheContinue reading “Excursus 050 – On Scientific Growth”
Excursus 049 – On Peripheral Innovation
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 Biological evolution and intellectual history exhibit a striking structural parallel. In evolutionary biology, new species rarely arise within the large, stable center of a population, where continual interbreeding tends to preserve existing forms. Instead, significant evolutionary divergence often begins in small, geographically or reproductively isolated populationsContinue reading “Excursus 049 – On Peripheral Innovation”
Hossein Jorjani 