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Analyzing Theories in the Frame Model

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Abstract

The frame model was developed in cognitive psychology and imported into the philosophy of science in order to provide representations of scientific concepts and conceptual taxonomies. The aim of this article is to show that beside the representation of scientific concepts the frame model is an efficient instrument to represent and analyze scientific theories. That is, we aim to establish the frame model as a representation tool for the structure of theories within the philosophy of science. For this, we will develop the notion of a theory frame and distinguish between theory frames for qualitative theories in which scientific measurement is based on nominal scales and theory frames for quantitative theories in which measurement is based on ratio scales. In three case studies, we will apply frames to a psychological, a linguistic, and a physical theory, thereby showing that the frame model is a powerful and intuitively accessible instrument to analyze the laws of scientific theories, the determination of theoretical concepts, the explanatory role of theoretical concepts, the abductive introduction of a new theoretical concept, the distinction between the core and the periphery of a theory, the diachronic development of a theory, and the distinction between qualitative and quantitative scientific concepts. Finally, we will provide a comparison to the structuralist view of theories, one of the most elaborated and applied models of theory representation.

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Notes

  1. For further recent work on frames see the DFG Collaborative Research Centre 991—The Structure of Representations in Language, Cognition, and Science: http://www.sfb991.uni-duesseldorf.de/en/the-structure-of-representations-in-language-cognition-and-science/.

  2. See Andersen et al. (1996, 2000, 2006), Chen et al. (1998), Chen and Barker (2000), Chen (2003), Barker et al. (2003), Votsis and Schurz (2012, 2014), Kornmesser (2016, 2017, 2018).

  3. However, see Petersen (2007) for a definition of frames without a restriction to finite value sets used for linguistic applications.

  4. The frame corresponds to what Barsalou and Hale (1993, Ch. 2) call a simple frame, i.e. it has no recursive structure.

  5. The theory frame of Fig. 2a can be understood as a representation of a set of bilateral reduction sentences operationalizing a scientific concept in the sense of Carnap (1936, also see Schurz 2013; Kornmesser 2016, 2017, 2018). The constraints represent the empirical consequences of the conjunction of bilateral reduction sentences operationalizing one and the same concept.

  6. Speaking of operationalizations or operational definitions may lead to the false assumption that VPT or PDT only consists of sets of definitions introducing new concepts. In this case, it would be misleading to speak of theories since definitions are analytic and do not contain any empirical content. However, as already pointed out in Sect. 2, the following case studies will show that, as opposed to definitions, operationalizations entail empirical consequences and, hence, cannot be analytic (Kornmesser 2016, 2017, 2018). Therefore, we take operationalizations to be laws of nature the conjunction of which has empirical content. This is why the operationalizations of both theories, i.e. the laws of VPT as well as of PDT, can be confirmed or disconfirmed by experience.

  7. The horizontal dimension is concerned with the demarcation of categories in the specific levels of abstraction which is explained by the prototypicality structure of the categories—the prototype of a certain category has those attributes that are very representative for this category and not representative for adjoining categories at the same level of abstraction. The vertical and the horizontal dimension of the prototype theory are connected by the notion of cue validity (Rosch 1978).

  8. Actually, Rosch et al. introduce four operationalizations for the theoretical concepts of VPT. However, for the sake of brevity, we subsume two operationalizations concerning the shape of objects (Rosch et al. 1976, pp. 398–405) under the third operationalization of our reconstruction of Rosch’s theory.

  9. The idea of special laws traces back to the inter-theoretical relation of specialization of the semantic view of theories. A specialization T` of a theory T is a strengthening of the logical content of T by adding further special laws to T (Balzer and Sneed 1977, pp. 201–202; Balzer et al. 1987, pp. 168–171).

  10. This sentence only explicates the structure of the law containing the theoretical concept basic level category. Of course, there are corresponding laws for the concepts superordinate category and subordinate category. We take the first core law to be the conjunction of these three laws.

  11. In the following, we will always refer to standard English and standard Spanish. However, some of the examples that are unacceptable in standard English might be acceptable in some idiolects.

  12. The symbol “*” designates the unacceptability of the clause that follows the symbol.

  13. Since the publication of Chomsky and Lasnik (1977), constructions of this kind have usually been referred to as that-t filter violations. However, in this paper we use the original notion of Perlmutter (1971) that, in accordance with Gilligan (1987, p. 105), is assumed to address the same grammatical phenomena.

  14. By a non-theoretical vocabulary we mean an antecedently available vocabulary (Hempel 1973, p. 372) containing terms that either refer to observable entities or that are commonly used in science and independent of the theory in question.

  15. Perlmutter (1971) is considered to be the first analysis that correlates the three grammatical phenomena SSE, NTS and NNTS and explains the typological differences with a single principle. Although Perlmutter (1971) did not call the explaining principle a parameter, in the generative literature he is stated to be one of the initiators of parameter research, especially the research on the pro drop parameter, since “the data Perlmutter noted is the first cross-linguistic generalization, i.e., parameter, in generative grammar. For better or worse, it has served as the basis for all subsequent work on Pro-drop phenomena” (Gilligan 1987, p. 76).

  16. For our representation of electrostatics, we refer to Halliday et al. (2008, pp. 561–627). However, the presentation of electrostatics can also be found in almost all other introductory textbooks of physics. The electrostatic force \( \vec{F} \) is a vector and the electric field \( \vec{E} \) is a vector field. In order to keep the mathematical description as simple as possible, we will refer to the magnitude F of the electrostatic force \( \vec{F} \) and to the magnitude E of the electric field \( \vec{E} \).

  17. To readers who are not familiar with structuralism, we recommend Balzer et al. (1987) for a comprehensive or Moulines (2002) for a short introduction.

  18. In structuralism the distinction between theoretical and empirical concepts is replaced by the distinction between T-theoretical and T-non-theoretical concepts. The two distinctions are not equivalent. In structuralism, concepts are always theoretical with respect to a certain theory T (and could be non-theoretical with respect to another theory). However, the difference between the two distinctions not being the point of this paper, we take “T-theoretical” to be synonymous to “theoretical” and “T-non-theoretical” to “empirical” and “non-theoretical”.

  19. Actually, the theory core contains as further elements a global link and a global constraint not discussed in this paper for the sake of brevity. Note that the expression “constraint” has a different meaning in structuralism and in our frame model.

  20. Note that in structuralism the notion constraint has another meaning than in the frame model (Balzer et al. 1987, pp. 40–47).

  21. Note that the expression “theory core” has a different meaning in structuralism and in our frame model.

  22. Similarly, our notions empirically progressive and applicationally progressive correspond to the notion of Lakatosian progress (Moulines 2000, p. 189 f.). Moulines (2000) provides a general analysis of scientific progress also including progress with (partial) incommensurability. Incommensurability not being the topic of this article, we did not develop a frame-based model for incommensurable theory shifts here. However, Andersen et al. (2006) have shown that the frame model is an appropriate tool to represent semantic concept shifts between incommensurable theories. Therefore, we are confident that future work will show that scientific progress between incommensurable theories is analyzable by means of theory frames.

  23. For a direct comparison between the structuralist model and the frame model, see Kornmesser (2012), which contains a structuralist reconstruction of PDT including the diachronic theory evolution from 1980 to 1987 set out in this article within the frame model.

  24. For this point we are indebted to an anonymous reviewer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Philosophy, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, 26111, Oldenburg, Germany

    Stephan Kornmesser

  2. Department of Philosophy, Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf, Universitaetsstrasse 1, Geb. 24.52, 40225, Duesseldorf, Germany

    Gerhard Schurz

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Correspondence to Stephan Kornmesser.

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Kornmesser, S., Schurz, G. Analyzing Theories in the Frame Model. Erkenn 85, 1313–1346 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-018-0078-5

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