First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Ist der Unterschied zwischen wissenschaftlichen Gesetzen und Theorien ein qualitativer oder lediglich von quantitativer Art? Der Autor versucht zu zeigen, daß Gesetze und Theorien fundamental verschieden sind und daß die Kenntnis ihrer verschiedenen Natur notwendig für ein richtiges Wissenschaftsverständnis ist. Aus seiner Sicht sind Theorien geistige Konstruktionen mit dem Ziel, kausale Erklärungen von empirischen Gesetzen zu geben, während diese Gesetze auf der Grundlage von Messungen entdeckt werden und die Tatsachen der Wissenschaft konstituieren. Erkenntnistheoretisch sind daher Theorien und Gesetze auf verschiedenen (...) Ebenen anzusiedeln: während Gesetze Wissen liefern, liefern Theorien Verstehen. Der Kern der Theorien besteht aus Modellen, die idealisierte Abstraktionen aus Zustandsarten darstellen. Theoretische Modelle konstituieren Ontologien, die kausale Mechanismen aufzeigen. Solche Ontologien betreffen den Bedeutungsaspekt des Gegenstandsbereichs, auf den die Theorie angewendet wird, während empirische Gesetze den Ausdrucksaspekt des gleichen Gegenstandsbereichs betreffen. Theorien erklären Gesetze, indem sie zeigen, wie der Ausdrucksaspekt lediglich der natürliche Ausdruck der Auswirkungen der Kausalmechanismen in Bedeutungsaspekt sind. (shrink)

1. Preliminary Reconnaissance: Realism, Instrumentalism, and Interpretation On the one hand, I think it is fair to say that philosophers recognize a special problem or question about how we are to “interpret” scientific theories only in light of their concerns about whether we are really entitled to believe what those theories say when they are interpreted in what we see as the most natural or straightforward or intuitive way. On the other hand, this fundamental worry reaches all (...) the way back to the inception of scientific inquiry itself, no matter how liberally we conceive of that enterprise. Before the relatively recent professionalization of academic fields, such concerns were well-represented among the figures who served simultaneously as both the leading practitioners and the leading philosophers of science. This is nicely illustrated by the strident debates throughout this community in the 18th and 19th centuries concerning whether only pure inductive methods were legitimate for scientific inquiry and/or whether the competing “method of hypothesis” could produce any genuine knowledge of nature (see Laudan 1981 Ch. 8). (shrink)

The six essays in this volume discuss philosophical thought on scientific theory including: a call for a realist, rather than instrumentalist interpretation of science; a critique of one of the core ideas of positivism concerning the relation between observational and theoretical languages; using aerodynamics to discuss the representational aspect of scientific theories and their isomorphic qualities; the relationship between the reliability of common sense and the authenticity of the world view of science; removing long-held ambiguities on the (...) theory of inductive logic; and the relationship between the actuality of conceptual revolutions in the history of science and traditional philosophical pictures of scientific theory-building. (shrink)

In this essay I present a statement of Quine's indeterminacy thesis in its general form. It is shown that the thesis is not about difficulties peculiar to so-called "radical translation." It is a general thesis about meaning and reference with important consequences for any theory of our theories and beliefs. It is claimed that the thesis is inconsistent with Quine's realism, his doctrine of the relativity of reference, and that the argument for the thesis has the consequence that the (...) concept of stimulus meaning is empty. The sense in which linguistic science, as a branch of behavioral science, is "part of physics" is discussed. An alternative to Quine's view of the nature and content of linguistic science is proposed. It is shown to be consistent with Quine's assumptions concerning the legitimate scope of behavioral science and not to involve the notions of analyticity, synonymy and "prevalent attitudes toward meaning, idea and proposition" ([9], p. 304) rejected by Quine. (shrink)

The six essays in this volume discuss philosophical thought on scientific theory including: a call for a realist, rather than instrumentalist interpretation of science; a critique of one of the core ideas of positivism concerning the relation between observational and theoretical languages; using aerodynamics to discuss the representational aspect of scientific theories and their isomorphic qualities; the relationship between the reliability of common sense and the authenticity of the world view of science; removing long-held ambiguities on the (...) theory of inductive logic; and the relationship between the actuality of conceptual revolutions in the history of science and traditional philosophical pictures of scientific theory-building. (shrink)

The, Contrasted with the Intuitional-Causal Approach. There are two states of sophistication in the attitude which men of science have taken towards theories of natural phenomena. In the more abstract state, the purpose has been to seek the most harmonious scheme of coordination of the phenomena without raising the question of underlying causes and without adherence to some, or any, set of preconceived principles regarded primarily as fundamental starting points. In this state, the starting points have been sought in (...) the phenomena themselves. (shrink)

Some scientists or philosophers argue that multiverse theories are unfalsifiable and thus not scientific. However, some advocates of multiverse theories have recently argued that although the multiverse is not observable, multiverse theories are indeed falsifiable in principle. Therefore, they share similar features with a conventional scientific theory. On the other hand, the proposals of an epistemic shift and nonempirical theory assessment have possibly revived the discussions of the scientific nature of multiverse theories. (...) In this article, I revisit the falsifiable arguments made by the advocates of multiverse theories and show that these arguments do not justify arguing the scientific nature of such theories. Moreover, even if we accept the proposals of the epistemic shift and the nonempirical theory assessment, I argue that multiverse theories still cannot pass or satisfy the required assessments based on the new theoretical virtues and the nonempirical arguments. (shrink)

Explaining phenomena is a primary goal of science. Consequently, it is unsurprising that gaining a proper understanding of the nature of explanation is an important goal of science education. In order to properly understand explanation, however, it is not enough to simply consider theories of the nature of explanation. Properly understanding explanation requires grasping the relation between explanation and understanding, as well as how explanations can lead to scientific knowledge. This article examines the nature of (...) explanation, its relation to understanding, and how explanations are used to generate scientific knowledge via inferences to the best explanation. Studying these features and applications of explanation not only provides insight into a concept that is important for science education in its own right, but also sheds light on an aspect of recent debates concerning the so-called consensus view of nature of science (NOS). Once the relation between explanation, understanding, and knowledge is clear, it becomes apparent that science is unified in important ways. Seeing this unification provides some support for thinking that there are general features of NOS of the sort proposed by the consensus view and that teaching about these general features of NOS should be a goal of science education. (shrink)

Much recent discussion in the aesthetics of nature has focused on Scientific cognitivism, the view that in order to engage in a deep and appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature, one must possess certain kinds of scientific knowledge. The most pressing difficulty faced by this view is an apparent tension between the very notion of aesthetic appreciation and the nature of scientific knowledge. In this essay, I describe this difficulty, trace some of its roots and (...) argue that attempts to dismiss it fail. I then develop a response to the problem, drawing on the notion of the theory-ladenness of observation. I conclude by considering the relationship between this response and one common approach to the problem, the appeal to expressive qualities in nature. (shrink)

In philosophy of science two questions become central in the discussion of the nature of empirical science: 1) What is a theory, i.e. how is it built up, how does it work? And: 2) How does a theory relate to its corresponding experiential basis? To deal with these two questions modern philosophy of science has devised various ‘models’ on the nature and working of scientific theories. Some aspects of these models are widely held within the community (...) of philosophers of science, but others are still being discussed quite controversially. In this paper, we will consider both kinds of aspects. Particularly, we will analyze how the meaning of scientific concepts is determined; the axiomatic construction of a scientific theory; the idea of model building views as a bridge between theory and experience; the holistic semantic thesis of science; the question about the true of scientific theories; and, finally, the hierarchic structure of theories.En filosofía de la ciencia, dos cuestiones resultan centrales en la discusión acerca de la naturalezade la ciencia empírica: 1) ¿qué es una teoría ?, es decir, ¿cómo estáconstituida y cómo funciona? y 2) ¿cómo se relaciona una teoría con su correspondientebase experiencial? Para tratar estas dos cuestiones, la moderna filosofía de la ciencia ha desarrolladovarios “modelos” sobre la naturaleza y el funcionamiento de lasteorías científicas. Algunos aspectos de estos modelos son ampliamente aceptados por lacomunidad de filósofos de la ciencia, mientras que otros son todavía discutidos de manerabastante controvertida. En este trabajo, consideraremos ambos tipos de aspectos. En particular,analizaremos cómo se determina el significado de los conceptos teóricos, la construcción axiomática de una teoría científica, la idea de las concepciones sobre la construcción de modelos como puente entre la teoría y la experiencia, la tesis semántica holista de la ciencia, la cuestión acerca de la verdad de las teorías científicas y, finalmente, la estructura jerárquica de las teorías. (shrink)

Concepts and problems; The calculus of inductive probability; Alternative inductive logics and the justification of induction; Probability and action; The pragmatic theory of inductive probability; The logic of causal statements as a formal language; The logic of causal statements as a model of natural language; The dispositional theory of empirical probability; Cause and chance in space - time systems; The presupposition of theory induction; Chance, cause, and reason.

Much recent discussion in the aesthetics of nature has focused on Scientific cognitivism, the view that in order to engage in a deep and appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature, one must possess certain kinds of scientific knowledge. The most pressing difficulty faced by this view is an apparent tension between the very notion of aesthetic appreciation and the nature of scientific knowledge. In this essay, I describe this difficulty, trace some of its roots and (...) argue that attempts to dismiss it fail. I then develop a response to the problem, drawing on the notion of the theory-ladenness of observation. I conclude by considering the relationship between this response and one common approach to the problem, the appeal to expressive qualities in nature. (shrink)

The first part of the paper is a metatheoretical consideration of such philosophy of nature which allows for using scientific results in philosophical analyses. An epistemological 'judgment' of those results becomes a preliminary task of this discipline: this involves taking a position in the controversy between realistic and antirealistic accounts of science. It is shown that a philosopher of nature has to be a realist, if his task to build true ontology of reality is to be achieved. (...) At the same time he cannot be a realist ˗ a possibility that science itself is capable of deciding what beings really exist (a typical realistic claim is that scientific notions refer to something external and truly describe its characteristics) has to be denied, if the philosophy of nature is seen as a discipline investigating the natural world, while being epistemologically different from the natural sciences. A possibility of weakening this opposition is explored in the second part of the paper, where the idea of so-called "postulated ontology" of scientific theories is brought to the consideration. This idea appears in the context of a well-known thesis of the underdetermination of scientific theories by empirical data. It is argued in the paper, that the conviction of the existence of some kind of relation between a given theory and ontological ideas can be derived from this thesis, regardless of its particular form. Therefore, certain solutions to classical philosophical questions can be obtained, in principle, by careful inspection of scientific achievements. However, if the thesis of underdetermination holds, such philosophical solutions are not imposed by science itself. In order to arrive at some kind of ontology based on science, it seems necessary to accept certain philosophical presuppositions in the first place. This and the fact that scientific theories change in time show that although such a kind of ontology is possible, and perhaps desirable, it can never be ultimate. (shrink)

This volume reflects the ‘philosophy of science in practice’ approach and takes a fresh look at traditional philosophical problems in the context of natural, social, and health research. Inspired by the work of Nancy Cartwright that shows how the practices and apparatuses of science help us to understand science and to build theories in the philosophy of science, this volume critically examines the philosophical concepts of evidence, laws, causation, and models and their roles in the process of scientific (...) reasoning. Each chapter is an important one in the philosophy of science, while the volume as a whole deals with these philosophical concepts in a unified way in the context of actual scientific practice. This volume thus aims to contribute to this new direction in the philosophy of science.​. (shrink)

Some people claim that evolution is "just a theory". Do you know what a scientific theory really is? Just a theory is an overview of the modern concepts of science. A clear understanding of the nature of science will enable you to distinguish science from pseudoscience (which illegitimately wraps itself in the mantle of science), and real social issues in science from the caricatures portrayed in postmodernist critiques. Prof. Ben-Ari's style is light (even humorous) and easy to read, (...) bringing the latest concepts of science to the general reader. Of particular interest is his analysis of the terminology of science (fact, law, proof, theory) in relation to the colloquial meaning of these terms. Between chapters are biographical vignettes of scientists — both familiar and unfamiliar — showing their common commitment to the enterprise of science, together with a diversity of backgrounds and personalities. This accessible, informative, and comprehensive work will give lay readers a good grasp of real science. (shrink)

It has been questioned whether it is at all possible to give the term “probability” one uniform and consistent interpretation not merely in mathematics, statistics, evaluation of evidence, testing of hypotheses but also in any situation where we want to express a degree of belief. The question itself of assigning a probability to our belief in a scientific theory has raised important questions of an epistemological as well as mathematical nature.

The central view of this dissertation is that a more comprehensive theory of scientific learning must incorporate insights from the disciplines of methodology and sociology. The standards of methodology play an indispensible role in learning by providing some of the principles necessary for theoretical evaluation. But such principles are not sufficient for socially embedded learning and they do not exclude the operation of social interests within science. It is the institutional structure of science that helps make up what abstract (...) standards alone lack: the material means with which to affect the advancement of learning. Institutions add something of their own dynamic to learning by helping to realize the abstract principles of methodology--they are never simply neutral husks. ;The views of a number of methodologists and sociologists are examined to demonstrate that this view of learning has not always been appreciated. Some methodologists have thought that by developing a theory of scientific method they were ensuring science's insulation from society at large. Such projects expect too much of methodology and the best methodology we have--fallibilism--leaves science open to social influence. Some sociologists have seen the role of a social theory as cutting across that of methodology--as if a social account of learning could only be at the expense of methodology. This had led some to deny methodology any explanatory power and others to limit sociology to accounting for merely the external aspects of scientific development. ;I throughout try to suggest how learning may be best accounted for by a fallibilist methodology combined with an institutional social theory. Such a dual view of learning is helpful because the advancement of learning is at times as dependent on its material constraints as on its intellectual ones. Thus, a comprehensive theory of learning can help science be a more critical enterprise and so contribute to its advancement. (shrink)

The English Synopsis is after the text of the book. The book presents an original and generalizing substantive vision of the philosophy of science through the prism of a detailed analysis of the polysystem structure of scientific theories. Theories are considered, firstly, as complex specialized forms of developed scientific thinking about the realities studied by natural science, secondly, as constantly improving tools for producing new knowledge in interaction with experimental research, and thirdly, as carriers of ordered (...) and verified knowledge. Emphasis is placed on their nominal and ontic subsystems. The book develops personal and joint research of the authors (theoretical physicist and philosopher), the experience of teaching philosophy of physics at NaUKMA, philosophy of science at the Higher School of Philosophy at the H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and theoretical physics at the National Technical University "Ihor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute". The research is based on a significant source base covering works of modern Western researchers in natural science and philosophy of science. For students, teachers, and scientists who are interested in the problems of modern philosophy of science and have a certain amount of scientific knowledge. It will also be useful for high school students who are eager to become scientists. (shrink)

This book addresses the logical aspects of the foundations of scientific theories. Even though the relevance of formal methods in the study of scientific theories is now widely recognized and regaining prominence, the issues covered here are still not generally discussed in philosophy of science. The authors focus mainly on the role played by the underlying formal apparatuses employed in the construction of the models of scientific theories, relating the discussion with the so-called semantic (...) approach to scientific theories. The book describes the role played by this metamathematical framework in three main aspects: considerations of formal languages employed to axiomatize scientific theories, the role of the axiomatic method itself, and the way set-theoretical structures, which play the role of the models of theories, are developed. The authors also discuss the differences and philosophical relevance of the two basic ways of aximoatizing a scientific theory, namely Patrick Suppes’ set theoretical predicates and the "da Costa and Chuaqui" approach. This book engages with important discussions of the nature of scientific theories and will be a useful resource for researchers and upper-level students working in philosophy of science. (shrink)

Memory trace was originally a philosophical term used to explain the phenomenon of remembering. Once debated by Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno of Citium, the notion seems more recently to have become the exclusive province of cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists. Nonetheless, this modern appropriation should not deter philosophers from thinking carefully about the nature of memory traces. On the contrary, scientific research on the nature of memory traces can rekindle philosopher's interest on this notion. With that general aim (...) in mind, the present paper has three specific goals. First, it attempts to chart the most relevant philosophical views on the nature of memory traces from both a thematic and historical perspective. Second, it reviews critical findings in the psychology and the neuroscience of memory traces. Finally, it explains how such results lend support to or discredit specific philosophical positions on the nature of memory traces. This paper also touches upon the issues raised by recent empirical research that theories of memory traces need to accommodate in order to succeed. (shrink)

This paper explores a new reason for preferring a model-theoretic approach to understanding the nature of scientific theories. Identifying the models in philosophers' model-theoretic accounts of theories with the concepts in cognitive scientists' accounts of categorization suggests a structure to families of models far richer than has commonly been assumed. Using classical mechanics as an example, it is argued that families of models may be "mapped" as an array with "horizontal" graded structures, multiply hierarchical "vertical" structures, (...) and local "radial" structures. These structures promise important implications for how scientific theories are learned and used in actual scientific practice. (shrink)

The problem of the peculiarcharacter of chemical laws and theories is a central topic in philosophy of chemistry. Oneof the most characteristic and, at the sametime, most puzzling examples in discussions onchemical laws and theories is Mendeleev''speriodic law. This law seems to be essentiallydifferent in its nature from the exact laws ofclassical physics, the latter being usuallyregarded as a paradigm of science byphilosophers. In this paper the main argumentsconcerning the peculiar character of chemicallaws and theories are (...) examined. The laws ofchemistry are natural laws to the same extentas are the laws of physics. The law discoveredby Mendeleev is a normal law of nature. It isnot a law of physics, nevertheless, it is exactin the same philosophical sense as are the lawsof physics. The periodic system of chemicalelements was established by constructing anidealized system of idealized elements. Thefundamental idealization substantiated byexperimental chemistry was the chemicalelement as a place in the periodicsystem. (shrink)

"A person is not explainable in molecular, field-theoretical, or physiological terms alone." With that declaration, Nobel laureate Gerald M. Edelman goes straight to the heart of Nature's Imagination, a vibrant and important collection of essays by some of the world's foremost scientists. Ever since the Enlightenment, the authors write, science has pursued reductionism: the idea that the whole can be understood by examining and explaining each of its parts. But as this book shows, scientists in every discipline are reaching (...) for a new paradigm that accounts for the whole--from the individual person to the universe itself. Nature's Imagination gathers together the work of thirteen leading mathematicians, astronomers, neuroscientists, and philosophers, as they discuss the revolution sweeping the sciences. Here Roger Penrose, Oliver Sacks, John Barrow, Gregory Chaitin, Maragret Boden, and others explore how and why classic reductionism is falling by the wayside in their own fields. As Freeman Dyson writes in the introduction, science is an art form, not a philosophical method, and it is always in search of new tools. Reductionism has done its work, and scientists are in search of another. Roger Penrose offers a fascinating account of irreducibility in mathematics, starting with the example of an impossible triangle--a drawing of a triangular object twisted so that could not exist in three dimensions. He breaks the triangle into three parts, showing that each corner is physically possible; only in combination is the triangle impossible. Both Penrose and mathematician Gregory Chaitin explore Godel's incompleteness theorem--as does John Barrow, who explains that Chaitin's proof of the theorem shows that, if we ever arrive at a Theory of Everything, there may be a still deeper and simpler unifying theory beyond that. Other contributors discuss the changing thinking in neuroscience, and the limitations of a mechanical view of the mind: as Oliver Sacks writes, "if we are to have a model or theory of mind as this actually occurs in living creatures in the world, it may have to be radically different from anything like a computational one." In addition, this volume includes staunch defenders of the classic scientific approach, such as Peter Atkins ("The omnicompetence of science, and in particular the simplicity its reductionist insight reveals, should be accepted as a working hypothesis until, if ever, it is proved inadequate"). The advance of science has been so startlingly swift in the last century that it has begun to approach limits never dreamed of before. This remarkable volume captures the latest thinking on where we must turn if we are to truly understand oursevles and the universe we live in. (shrink)

The "mathematization" of knowledge is a historically inevitable process governed by two circumstances. In the first place there is the need for the further extension of knowledge in all areas of human activity, whether it be the study of natural phenomena or the theory of taking decisions in the economic or social sphere. Marx pointed out long ago that a science reaches its highest levels only when it succeeds in making use of mathematics. The second circumstance rendering the process of (...) deepening and broadening the mathematization of knowledge not only necessary but possible lies in the constant development both of mathematics itself and of the technical means broadening the sphere of its application. (shrink)

The core thesis of the paper is that the constitution of biological science begins with a conceptual innovation with far-reaching consequences with effect up to the present: by conceiving the parts of living beings as organs (that is, as tools), Aristotle laid the foundation stone for a functional explanation of animate nature. Comparative anatomy is thus transformed from a merely descriptive to an explanatory theory. The point of the discussion is above all that a functional explanation must not be (...) confused with the sort of teleology according to which the function of an organ is understood as the cause of its existence. The first section outlines the theoretical motives that Aristotle adduces in arguing for biology (against contemporary contempt for biological research). The second step addresses the significance of the parts of animals in Aristotle's larger collection of zoological material, the Historia animalium . The third section demonstrates how in the major explanatory work De partibus animalium the term organon takes on the status of a key methodological concept. Finally, the fourth section discusses the significance of the Aristotelian determination of the organic with respect to current discourses in natural science. (shrink)

Interpretation, Constraint, and the Prospects of Scientific Realism I explore the interaction between theory-based interpretations of scientific evidence and constraints on theories provided by that evidence. Interpretation is often viewed as a source of error and a reason for scepticism about scientific results. But, I argue, while interpretation does generate epistemic risk, it also points to new sources of evidence that can constrain our theories. This is especially clear in the development of instrumentation that increases (...) the range of our interactions with nature. While the design of such instruments and the interpretation of their outputs are deeply dependent on theory-based interpretations, these outputs can still challenge those very theories. At the same time, theory-guided instrumentation provides us access to aspects of nature that we cannot study with our unaided senses. This access allows us to extend the range of evidence that we collect, and thus increases the constraints on our theories. As a result, theory-guided evidence collection has a positive impact on the prospects of scientific realism since these increasing constraints on our theories provide our only reason for thinking that we may be approaching the development of true theories. (shrink)

While we typically think of culture as defined by geography or ethnicity (e.g., American culture, Mayan culture), the term also applies to the practices and expectations of smaller groups of people. Though embedded in the larger culture surrounding them, such subcultures have their own sets of rules like those that scientists do. Philosophy of science has as its main object of studio the scientific activity. A way in which we have tried to explain these scientific practices is from (...) the actual ontological commitments that scientists do through their scientific theories. Certainly, we know scientific theories through some specific scientific language, which is, in its turn, a subset of the natural language developed by a particular culture. This study is conducted to explore and evaluate some of the most important epistemological consequences of these ontological commitments, specially the so-called ‘truth-commitment’ and its relation with a linguistic-cultural framework. There is an interesting debate between advocates and opponents of scientific realistic view of the natural world. Some lines of scientific realism argumentation assure that: (i) Mature scientific theories are approximately true. (ii) There are entities and organisms in the world that correspond with the ontology presupposed by the best scientific theories within a specific domain of scientific research and (iii) The new acceptable scientific theories should explain why past theories were successful predecessors (Colyvan 2008, Cocchiarella 2007 & Laudan 1981). Contrary, anti- realist positions ensure against the realist’s true - claim that is a semantic commitment - that the purpose of scientific theories to found the truth it is simple an unattainable goal, especially if the kind of truth they are looking for is a corresponding relation between scientific theories and the ontology of the world. Anti-realist positions held that this relation could be circular and unknowable. I do believe that there is a deep confusion between the way in which we accede to the knowledge of the constitutive structures, entities and organisms of the world (which is an epistemological matter) and the way these structures, entities and organisms are (which is an ontological matter). It seems that there is a bridge between the epistemological and ontological aspect in need for conceptual clarification. I do propose that the type of link between the two extremes have to be linguistic in nature. (shrink)

String theory currently is the only viable candidate for a unified description of all known natural forces. This article tries to demonstrate that the fundamental structural and methodological differences that set string theory apart from other physical theories have important philosophical consequences. Focussing on implications for the realism debate in philosophy of science, it is argued that both poles of that debate face new problems in the context of string theory. On the one hand, the claim of underdetermination of (...) scientific theory by the available empirical data, which is a pivotal element of empiricism, loses much of its plausibility. On the other hand, the dissolution of any meaningful notion of an external ontological object destroys the basis for conventional versions of scientific realism. String theory seems to suggest an intermediate position akin to Structural Realism that is based on a newly emerging principle, to be called the principle of theoretical uniqueness. (shrink)

In this way Dilworth succeeds in providing a conception of science in which scientific progress is based on both rational and empirical considerations.

Table of Contents 1 Policy-making, prediction and the theory of international behaviour 5 2 Social science, naturalism and scientific realism 33 3 Theory, observation and law 63 4 Natural causation, social action and international politics 87 5 Prediction, theory and policy-making 126 6 Explaining agreement and disagreement in the natural sciences and social sciences 172 7 Conclusions 207.

The classical (set-theoretic) concept of structure has become essential for every contemporary account of a scientific theory, but also for the metatheoretical accounts dealing with the adequacy of such theories and their methods. In the latter category of accounts, and in particular, the structural metamodels designed for the applicability of mathematics have struggled over the last decade to justify the use of mathematical models in sciences beyond their 'indispensability' in terms of either method or concepts/entities. In this paper, (...) I argue that these metamodels employ structures of different natures and epistemologies, and this diversity does pose a serious problem to the intended justification. (shrink)

Featuring the Gestalt Model and the Perspectivist conception of science, this book is unusual in its non-relativistic development of the idea that successive scientific theories are logically incommensurable. This edition includes four new appendices in which the central ideas of the book are applied to subatomic physics, the distinction between laws and theories, the relation between absolute and relative conceptions of space, and the environmental issue of sustainable development.

This book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach to quantum theory and cutting-edge metaphysics and philosophy of science, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities, rather than as telling us solely about actuality. When quantum physics is taken seriously in the way first proposed by Hugh Everett III, it provides the resources for a new systematic metaphysical framework encompassing possibility, (...) necessity, actuality, chance, counterfactuals, and a host of related modal notions. -/- Rationalist metaphysicians argue that the metaphysics of modality is strictly prior to any scientific investigation; metaphysics establishes which worlds are possible, and physics merely checks which of these worlds is actual. Naturalistic metaphysicians respond that science may discover new possibilities and new impossibilities. This book's quantum theory of contingency takes naturalistic metaphysics one step further, allowing that science may discover what it is to be possible. As electromagnetism revealed the nature of light, as acoustics revealed the nature of sound, as statistical mechanics revealed the nature of heat, so quantum physics reveals the nature of contingency. (shrink)

This paper examines ‘The Natures of Conceptual Change’, the Notre Dame lectures given by Kuhn in 1980. In particular, I aim to examine the content of these lectures which was not published before. This exegetical task will shed light on the sources of the notion of taxonomy used in these lectures for the first time with the explicit philosophical purposes. It also will shed new light on Kuhn's position regarding the causal theory of reference. Reviewing these archival materials paves the (...) way for intertextual comparisons, as Kuhn included part of these lectures in the texts published later and in the book Plurality of Worlds: an Evolutionary Theory of Scientific Development. In recent years, the publication of Kuhn's archival material and the research on these texts increased in quantity and quality. Faced with this encouraging landscape, a comparative examination of the different unpublished texts is crucial to refining both our research tools on Kuhn's intellectual biography and the philosophical work inspired by his proposal. (shrink)

This book addresses central issues in the philosophy and metaphysics of science, namely the nature of scientific theories, their partial truth, and the necessity of scientific laws within a moderate realist and empiricist perspective. Accordingly, good arguments in favour of the existence of unobservable entities postulated by our best theories, such as electrons, must be inductively grounded on perceptual experience and not their explanatory power as most defenders of scientific realism claim. Similarly, belief in (...) the reality of dispositions such as causal powers which ground the natural necessity of scientific laws must be based on experience. Hence, this book offers a synthetic presentation of an original metaphysics of science, namely a metaphysics of properties, both categorical and dispositional, while at the same time opposing strong versions of necessitarism according to which laws are true in all possible worlds. The main theses and arguments are clearly presented in a non-technical way. Thus, on top of being of interest to the specialists of the topics discussed, it is also useful as a textbook in courses for third year and more advanced university students. (shrink)

"More than any thing else technology creates our world. It creates our wealth, our economy, our very way of being," says W. Brian Arthur. Yet, until now the major questions of technology have gone unanswered. Where do new technologies come from -- how exactly does invention work? What constitutes innovation, and how is it achieved? Why are certain regions -- Cambridge, England, in the 1920s and Silicon Valley today -- hotbeds of innovation, while others languish? Does technology, like biological life, (...) evolve? How do new industries, and the economy itself, emerge from technologies? In this groundbreaking work, pioneering technology thinker and economist W. Brian Arthur sets forth a boldly original way of thinking about technology that gives answers to these questions. The Nature of Technology is an elegant and powerful theory of technology's origins and evolution. It achieves for the progress of technology what Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions did for scientific progress. Arthur explains how transformative new technologies arise and how innovation really works. Conventional thinking ascribes the invention of technologies to "thinking outside the box," or vaguely to genius or creativity, but Arthur shows that such explanations are inadequate. Rather, technologies are put together from pieces -- themselves technologies -- that already exist. Technologies therefore share common ancestries and combine, morph, and combine again to create further technologies. Technology evolves much as a coral reef builds itself from activities of small organisms -- it creates itself from itself; all technologies are descended from earlier technologies. Drawing on a wealth of examples, from historical inventions to the high-tech wonders of today, and writing in wonder fully engaging and clear prose, Arthur takes us on a mind-opening journey that will change the way we think about technology and how it structures our lives. (shrink)