Abstract
The main objection against various empiricist and — in particular — positivist doctrines in 19th- and 20th-century philosophy of science has been that they unduly restrict theorizing: as descriptive accounts of natural and social science they refuse scientific status to various theories which many would normally count as science; as programmes for research they impose on theorizing limitations which would hamper the development of certain theories and in this way — so some argue — stifle the progress of science. In addition, they branded as nonsense or — at least — as empirically meaningless various metaphysical speculations. Since apart from philosophers also many scientists have indulged in such speculations, it is felt that not only vital components of traditional philosophy but also of science have thus been ostracised To be sure, very few of those empirically minded scientists and philosophers of science wanted to dispense with or ban theories altogether and to restrict science to the ‘empirical basis’ and empirical generalizations.
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Notes
Cf. the dispute over the paper by Friedman, M., The Methodology of Positive Economics’ in American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 1963.
Popper, Karl, ‘Three Views Concerning Human Knowledge’, Conjectures and Refutations, London 1963, pp. 97–120.
ibidem, p. 99.
ibidem, pp. 107–110, 114–119.
ibidem, p. 98.
Feyerabend, Paul, ‘Realism and Instrumentalism: Comments on the Logic of Factual Support’, M. Bunge (ed.), The Critical Approach to Science and Philosophy, London 1964, pp. 280–309.
Feyerabend, Paul, ‘Consolations for the Specialist’, in I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Cambridge 1970, p. 220.
ibidem, p. 220.
Feyerabend, Paul, ‘Realism and Instrumentalism’, p. 307.
ibidem, p. 305.
Cohen, M. R. and Drabkin, I. E. (eds.), A Source Book in Greek Science, Harvard 1969, pp. 90–91; ‘Geminus: The Scope of Astronomy Contrasted with that of Physics’.
Rosen, Edward (ed.), Three Copernican Treatises, New York (2nd. ed.), 1959, Introduction, pp. 24–5.
Ibidem, p. 22.
Duhem, Pierre, To Save The Phenomena, Chicago and London 1969, p. 107.
Feyerabend, Paul, ‘How to be a Good Empiricist’, in P. H. Nidditch (ed.), Philosophy of Science, O.U.P., 1968, p. 29.
Rosen, E., ‘How to be a Good Empiricist’, in P. H. Nidditch (ed.), Philosophy of Science, O.U.P., 1968op. cit., p. 23.
Duhem, P., ‘How to be a Good Empiricist’, in P. H. Nidditch (ed.), Philosophy of Science, O.U.P., 1968op. cit., p. 108.
ibidem, p. 109.
ibidem, pp. 109–10.
Madden, E. (ed.), Theories of Scientific Method, Seattle and London 1966, pp. 120, 123.
Rosen, E., Theories of Scientific Method, Seattle and London 1966op. cit., p. 33.
Duhem, P., Theories of Scientific Method, Seattle and London 1966op. cit., p. 113.
Popper, K., Theories of Scientific Method, Seattle and London 1966op. cit., p. 98.
Duhem, P., Theories of Scientific Method, Seattle and London 1966op. cit., p. 117.
Duhem, P., The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, 1954. ‘Physical Law’ (reprinted in J. Kockelmans (ed.), Philosophy of Science: The Historical Background, New York 1968, p. 302).
ibidem, pp. 299–306.
ibidem, p. 305.
ibidem, pp. 305–6.
ibidem, p. 302;
Körner, S., Experience and Theory, London 1966.
Wojcicki, R., Metodoloqia Formalna Nauk Empirycznych [Formal Methodology of Empirical Sciences], 1974, Wroclaw. Zaklad im. Ossolinskich. pp. 173–186.
Duhem, P., The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, Princeton 1954, Chapter II, 1 (Cf. also W. James’s rejection of the classical, absolute concept of truth.) It is interesting to note that in the disputes over intuitionist logic in the nineteen-twenties the members of the Paris School refer to that logic as ‘empiricist logic’ by contrast to the usual (classical two-valued) ‘formal logic’. Cf. R. Wavre ‘Logique formale et logique empiriste’, Revue de Métaphysique et de morale (Janvier 1926), also articles in same journal by P. Levy, M. Barzin, A. Errera and E. Borel. Poincaré, Henri, Dernières Pensées, Paris 1920, pp. 161–2. The analogy between the anti-metaphysical intolerance of logical empiricists and of intuitionists was pointed out by Karl Menger in his article ‘The New Logic’, Krise and Neuaufbau in den exakten Wissenschaften, Wien 1933.
Poincaré, H., Science and Hypothesis, New York 1952, p. 144.
H. Poincaré clearly rejected extreme conventionalism in his polemic with E. LeRoy in The Value of Science, New York 1958, Part III, ‘The Objective Value of Science’, pp. 112–128. For his view of the descriptive function of physical theories, cf. Science and Hypothesis, Chapter X, particularly pp. 160–2.
On the role of metaphors in explanations, Cf. Hesse, M., ‘The Explanatory Function of Metaphor’, in Y. Bar-Hillel (ed.), Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Amsterdam 1965; also Kmita, J., ‘Wyjasnianie naukowe i metafora’, Studia Filozoficzne 3(1967), 143–159.
Poincaré, H., Science and Hypothesis, Chapter X.
Duhem, P. ‘Physical law’, p. 301, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, 1954. Cf. however, ibidem, Appendix: ‘Physics of a believer’ (1905), p. 285. Some statements here appear to contradict the doctrine of theory-dependence of observables and to express extreme instrumentalist views.
Poincaré, H., Science and Hypothesis, p. 143.
Poincaré, H., The Value of Science, p. 120.
For Poincaré’s criticism of LeRoy’s ‘incommensurability thesis’, see The Value of Science, part III, Chapter X, 4, pp. 122–128.
Vaihinger, H., The Philosophy of ‘As if, New York 1925, p. 163.
In an empirical theory so reconstructed there may be three types of theoretical statements, analytic, empirical and indeterminate. Carnap, R., Philosophical Foundations of Physics, New York 1966;
Przelecki, M., The Logic of Empirical Theories, London 1968;
Williams, P. M., ‘On the Conservative Extensions of Semantical Systems: A Contribution to the Problems of Analyticity’, Synthese 25 (1973), 398–416. For a different view of the semantics of empirical theories Cf.
e.g. Tuomela, R., Theoretical Concepts, Wien, New York 1973.
Dijksterhuis, E. J., The Mechanization of the World Picture, London 1961.
Dijksterhuis, E. J., op. cit.The Mechanization of the World Picture, London 1961.
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Giedymin, J. (1976). Instrumentalism and its Critique: A Reappraisal. In: Cohen, R.S., Feyerabend, P.K., Wartofsky, M.W. (eds) Essays in Memory of Imre Lakatos. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 39. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1451-9_14
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