Frederick Suppe has come to enjoy a position of undisputed leadership in the post-positivistic philosophy of science.

Suppe, F. The search for philosophic understanding of scientific theories (p. [1]-241)--Proceedings of the symposium.--Bibliography, compiled by Rew A. Godow, Jr. (p. [615]-646).

Achinstein, Putnam, and others have urged the rejection of the received view on theories (which construes theories as axiomatic calculi where theoretical terms are given partial observational interpretations by correspondence rules) because (i) the notion of partial interpretation cannot be given precise formulation, and (ii) the observational-theoretical distinction cannot be drawn satisfactorily. I try to show that these are the wrong reasons for rejecting the received view since (i) is false and it is virtually impossible to demonstrate the truth of (...) (ii). Nonetheless, the received view should be rejected because it obscures a number of epistemologically important features of scientific theorizing. I show this by sketching an alternative analysis which reveals some of these features and gives a more faithful picture of scientific theorizing. (shrink)

The positivistic Received View construed scientific theories syntactically as axiomatic calculi where theoretical terms were given a partial semantic interpretation via correspondence rules connecting them to observation statements. This paper assesses what, with hindsight, seem the most important defects in the Received View; surveys the main proposed successor analyses to the Received View--various Semantic Conception versions and the Structuralist Analysis; evaluates how well they avoid those defects; examines what new problems they face and where the most promising require further development (...) or leave unanswered questions; explores implications of recent work on models for understanding theories; and rebuts the few criticisms of the Semantic Conception that have surfaced. (shrink)

Scientific articles exemplify standard functional units constraining argumentative structures. Severe space limitations demand every paragraph and illustration contribute to establishing the paper's claims. Philosophical testing and confirmation models should take into account each paragraph, table, and illustration. Hypothetico-Deductive, Bayesian Inductive, and Inference-to-the-Best-Explanation models do not, garbling the logic of papers. Micro-analysis of the fundamental paper in plate tectonics reveals an argumentative structure commonplace in science but ignored by standard philosophical accounts that cannot be dismissed as mere rhetorical embellishment. Papers with (...) illustrations often display a second argumentative structure differing from the text's. Constraints on adequate testing and confirmation analyses are adduced. "Experiments are about the assembly of persuasive arguments, ones that will stand up in court.... The task at hand is to capture the building-up of a persuasive argument about the world even in the absence of the logician's certainty." --Galison, How Experiments End, 277. (shrink)

Scientific articles exemplify standard functional units constraining argumentative structures. Severe space limitations demand every paragraph and illustration contribute to establishing the paper's claims. Philosophical testing and confirmation models should take into account each paragraph, table, and illustration. Hypothetico-Deductive, Bayesian Inductive, and Inference-to-the-Best-Explanation models do not, garbling the logic of papers. Micro-analysis of the fundamental paper in plate tectonics reveals an argumentative structure commonplace in science but ignored by standard philosophical accounts that cannot be dismissed as mere rhetorical embellishment. Papers with (...) illustrations often display a second argumentative structure differing from the text's. Constraints on adequate testing and confirmation analyses are adduced. “Experiments are about the assembly of persuasive arguments, ones that will stand up in court. … The task at hand is to capture the building-up of a persuasive argument about the world even in the absence of the logician's certainty.”—Galison, How Experiments End, 277. (shrink)

We have seen that the operational imperative is a prescriptive thesis about formulations of theories which imposes restrictions on the sorts of theories science may employ. We assessed the operational imperative by investigating a number of relationships holding between theory formulations, theories, physical systems, and phenomena, and then applying our findings to the operational imperative. These applications showed that the operational definitions required by the operational imperative were not definitions at all, being rather statements of putative empirical regularities holding between (...) particulars which in effect are formulations of empirically true or false theories. From this fact it followed that the supposed epistemic pay-offs of following the operational imperative fail to accrue: Operational definitions do not enable one to go deductively from knowledge of observables to knowledge of unobservables, and operational definitions do not provide a means for testing theories about unobservable phenomena. As such the operational imperative should be rejected in both its weak and strong versions. However, we did discover a grain of truth in the observational imperative — namely that theories with non-observable parameters are testable only if these parameters have observable manifestations. But that grain of truth does not lead to the operational imperative as typically advanced unless one embraces certain epistemological theories about observation which recent work on observation makes highly doubtful. (shrink)

This article seeks rapprochement between the sociology of knowledge and philosophy of science by attempting to capture the best social constructionist insights within a strongly realistic philosophy of science. Key to doing so are separating the grounds for the individual scientist coming to know that P from those grounds for socially credentialing the claim that P within the relevant scientific subcommunity and showing how truth considerations can enter into the analysis of knowledge without interfering with social constructionist treatments of credentialing (...) claims. A detailed epistemology and associated account of the social credentialing of knowledge claims are presented. Close attention is paid to the epistemological and social aspects of the nature and role of observation reports, the interpretation of data, simplifications, idealizations, and approximations, and the nature of replication. The article contains a National Aeronautics and Space Administration remote-sensing case study and a detailed analysis of replication in the 1881–1933 Michelson-Morley-Miller interferometer ether studies. (shrink)

In 1925 the old quantum mechanics of Planck, Einstein, and Bohr was replaced by the new (matrix) quantum mechanics of Born, Heisenberg, Jordan, and Dirac. In 1926 Schrödinger developed wave mechanics, which proved to be equivalent to matrix mechanics in the sense that they led to the same energy levels. Dirac and Jordan joined the two theories into one transformation quantum theory. In 1932 von Neumann presented his Hilbert space formulation of quantum mechanics and proved a representation theorem showing that (...) sequences in transformation theory were isomorphic to sequences in the Hilbert space formulation (see quantum mechanics). Three different notions of theory identity are involved here: theory individuation, theoretical equivalence, and empirical equivalence. (shrink)

The Hatch Act of 1887 was passed in the effort to make agriculture more scientific and efficient. This promise has been seriously compromised by the fact that even research of the highest quality often has limited applicability in practical farming situations. This paper attempts to provide philosophical explanations why this is so by introducing and discussing theoretical models. Consideration is given to why Farming Systems Research does not provide a solution to the philosophical problems raised. The final section presents a (...) strategy for partially avoiding some of the limitations in practical applicability of agricultural research studies and discusses how this strategy relates to the activities of the cooperative extension services. A secondary concern of the paper is with how governmental research priorities compromise the practical applicability of research in farming situations. (shrink)

Recently a number of philosophers have maintained that the meanings of terms in a scientific language are “theory-laden” or determined by the theory in which they occur, and thus that if the same term occurs in different theories, it will take on different meanings in the different theories; so the theories are incommensurable. An often-stated corollary to this doctrine is the claim that possessors of different theories cannot express or possess the same facts since they attach different meanings to the (...) terms used to give expression to the facts. Various attacks against this extreme doctrine on the relativity of facts have been mounted. Some of them consist in showing defective the argument advanced in support of this doctrine; but such criticisms at best show that the defenses offered for the doctrine are defective, not that the doctrine itself is defective. (shrink)

Axiomatization is a formal method for specifying the content of a theory wherein a set of axioms is given from which the remaining content of the theory can be derived deductively as theorems. The theory is identified with the set of axioms and its deductive consequences, which is known as the closure of the axiom set. The logic used to deduce theorems may be informal, as in the typical axiomatic presentation of Euclidean geometry; semiformal, as in reference to set theory (...) or specified branches of mathematics; or formal, as when the axiomatization consists in augmenting the logical axioms for first‐order predicate calculus by the proper axioms of the theory. Although Euclid distinguished axioms from postulates, today the terms are used interchangeably. The earlier demand that axioms be self‐evident or basic truths gradually gave way to the idea that axioms were just assumptions, and later to the idea that axioms are just designated sentences used to specify the theory. (shrink)

William Craig (1953) proved a theorem about theories in mathematical logic which has been utilized in philosophical attempts to analyze scientific theories.

In the most fundamental scientific sense, to define is to delimit. Thus definitions serve to fix boundaries of phenomena or the range of applicability of terms or concepts. That whose range is to be delimited is called the definiendum, and that which delimits the definiens. In practice, the hard sciences tend to be more concerned with delimiting phenomena, and definitions are frequently informal, given on the fly, as in “Therefore, a layer of high rock strength, called the lithosphere, exists near (...) the surface of planets.” Social science practice tends to focus on specifying application of concepts through formal operational definitions. Philosophical discussions have concentrated almost exclusively on articulating definitional forms for terms. (shrink)

Identifying demonstratives are of the form 'this d', Where d is a descriptive noun phrase. I am concerned with the effect of a misidentifying identifying demonstrative on the truth of propositions such as 'this d is p'; I argue there are circumstances in which 'this d is p' can be true when the referent of 'this d' is a p but is not a d. Extending the results, I argue there are circumstances where 'i know that this d is p' (...) and 'i believe that this d is p' can be true when the referent of 'this d' is a p but is not a d. The philosophical importance of the results is discussed. (shrink)

In what is known as the “received view” analysis, logical positivism construed scientific theories TC as being axiomatized in first‐order predicate calculus using proper axioms T (the theoretical laws) and having distinct observational and theoretical vocabularies VO and VT which are related to each other via a dictionary of correspondence rules C (see theories). Prior to 1936 the correspondence rules were required to be equivalences between VT terms and simple or complex observational conditions expressible using just VO terms that provided (...) noncreative explicit definitions of the terms (see craig's theorem). The empirical content of the theory TC was identified with the set O of theorems which contained VO but not VT terms. (shrink)

The positivistic Received View construed scientific theories syntactically as axiomatic calculi where theoretical terms were given a partial semantic interpretation via correspondence rules connecting them to observation statements. This paper assesses what, with hindsight, seem the most important defects in the Received View; surveys the main proposed successor analyses to the Received View—various Semantic Conception versions and the Structuralist Analysis; evaluates how well they avoid those defects; examines what new problems they face and where the most promising require further development (...) or leave unanswered questions; explores implications of recent work on models for understanding theories; and rebuts the few criticisms of the Semantic Conception that have surfaced. (shrink)

In this slim but excessively priced volume, Paul Horwich attempts "to exhibit a unified approach to philosophy of science, based on the concept of subjective probability... by offering new treatments of several problems... and... by providing a more complete probabilistic account of scientific methods and assumptions than has been given before". Starting with the view that beliefs are not all-or-nothing matters but rather are susceptible to varying degrees of intensity, and interpreting this via a modified Bayesian use of subjective probability, (...) Horwich treats well-known puzzles in philosophy of science by considering the following topics: accommodation of data, statistical evidence, severe tests, surprising predictions, paradox of confirmation, the "grue" problem, simplicity, ad hoc hypotheses, diverse evidence, prediction vs. accommodation, desirability of further evidence, and realism vs. instrumentalism. Preceding treatment of these topics is an acceptance of the Bayesian principle that "the degrees of belief of an ideally rational person conform to the mathematical principles of probability theory" and a treatment of probability theory and its various standard interpretations which comprises a quarter of the text. (shrink)

On the basis of an analysis of a single paper on plate tectonics, a paper whose actual content is nowhere in evidence, Frederick Suppe concludes that no standard model of confirmation—hypothetico-deductive, Bayesian-inductive, or inference to the best explanation—can account for the structure of a scientific paper that reports an experimental result. He further argues on the basis of a survey of scientific papers, a survey whose data and results are also absent, that papers which have a rather stringent (...) length limit, such as the one on plate tectonics, are typical of science. Thus, he concludes that no standard confirmation scheme is capable of dealing with scientific practice. Suppe also requires that an adequate model of philosophical testing should be able to account for everything in such scientific papers, in which space is at a premium. (shrink)