140 found
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  1. Laws and symmetry.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Metaphysicians speak of laws of nature in terms of necessity and universality; scientists, in terms of symmetry and invariance. In this book van Fraassen argues that no metaphysical account of laws can succeed. He analyzes and rejects the arguments that there are laws of nature, or that we must believe there are, and argues that we should disregard the idea of law as an adequate clue to science. After exploring what this means for general epistemology, the author develops the empiricist (...)
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  2. The Scientific Image.William Demopoulos & Bas C. van Fraassen - 1982 - Philosophical Review 91 (4):603.
  3. Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 2008 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
  4. (1 other version)Laws and Symmetry.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1989 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 182 (3):327-329.
     
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  5.  33
    (1 other version)The Empirical Stance.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 2002 - Yale University Press.
    What is empiricism and what could it be? Bas C. van Fraassen, one of the world’s foremost contributors to philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, here undertakes a fresh consideration of these questions and offers a program for renewal of the empiricist tradition. The empiricist tradition is not and could not be defined by common doctrines, but embodies a certain stance in philosophy, van Fraassen says. This stance is displayed first of all in a searing, recurrent critique of metaphysics, (...)
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  6. (1 other version)Belief and the Will.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1984 - Journal of Philosophy 81 (5):235-256.
  7. Singular terms, truth-value gaps, and free logic.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1966 - Journal of Philosophy 63 (17):481-495.
  8. Belief and the problem of Ulysses and the sirens.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1995 - Philosophical Studies 77 (1):7-37.
    This is surely a bit of Socrates' famous irony. He draws the analogy to explain how his friends should regard poetry as they regretfully banish it from the ideal state. But lovers were no more sensible then than they are now. The advice to banish poetry, undermined already by Plato's own delight and skill in drama, is perhaps undermined still further by this evocation of a 'sensible' lover who counts love so well lost. Yet Socrates' image is one of avowed (...)
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  9. An introduction to the philosophy of time and space.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1970 - New York: Columbia University Press.
  10. Constructive Empiricism Now.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2001 - Philosophical Studies 106 (1-2):151-170.
    Constructive empiricism, the view introduced in The Scientific Image, is a view of science, an answer to the question "what is science?" Arthur Fine's and Paul Teller's contributions to this symposium challenge especially two key ideas required to formulate that view, namely the observable/unobservable and acceptance/belief distinctions. I wish to thank them not only for their insightful critique but also for the support they include. For they illuminate and counter some misunderstandings of Constructive Empiricism along the way. That leaves me (...)
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  11.  45
    The Charybdis of Realism: Epistemological Implications of Bell’s Inequality.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1982 - Synthese 52 (1):25-38.
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  12. Structure: Its shadow and substance.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2006 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (2):275-307.
    Structural realism as developed by John Worrall and others can claim philosophical roots as far back as the late 19th century, though the discussion at that time does not unambiguously favor the contemporary form, or even its realism. After a critical examination of some aspects of the historical background some severe critical challenges to both Worrall's and Ladyman's versions are highlighted, and an alternative empiricist structuralism proposed. Support for this empiricist version is provided in part by the different way in (...)
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  13. Presupposition, implication, and self-reference.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1968 - Journal of Philosophy 65 (5):136-152.
  14. On the extension of Beth's semantics of physical theories.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1970 - Philosophy of Science 37 (3):325-339.
    A basic aim of E. Beth's work in philosophy of science was to explore the use of formal semantic methods in the analysis of physical theories. We hope to show that a general framework for Beth's semantic analysis is provided by the theory of semi-interpreted languages, introduced in a previous paper. After developing Beth's analysis of nonrelativistic physical theories in a more general form, we turn to the notion of the 'logic' of a physical theory. Here we prove a result (...)
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  15. Facts and tautological entailments.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1969 - Journal of Philosophy 66 (15):477-487.
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  16.  45
    Formal semantics and logic.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1971 - New York,: Macmillan.
  17. (2 other versions)The pragmatics of explanation.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1977 - American Philosophical Quarterly 14 (2):143-150.
  18. One or Two Gentle Remarks about Hans Halvorson’s Critique of the Semantic View.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2014 - Philosophy of Science 81 (2):276-283,.
    In recent papers Hans Halvorson has offered a critique of the semantic view of theories, showing that theories may be the same although the corresponding sets of models are different and, conversely, that theories may be different although the corresponding sets of models are the same. This critique will be assessed, first, as it pertains to issues concerning scientific models in the empirical sciences and, second, independent of any concern with empirical science.
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  19.  56
    The Logic of Conditional Obligation.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1972 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 1 (3/4):417.
  20. A problem for relative information minimizers in probability kinematics.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1981 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 32 (4):375-379.
  21. Fine-grained opinion, probability, and the logic of full belief.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1995 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 24 (4):349-377.
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  22. The perils of Perrin, in the hands of philosophers.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2009 - Philosophical Studies 143 (1):5 - 24.
    The story of how Perrin’s experimental work established the reality of atoms and molecules has been a staple in (realist) philosophy of science writings (Wesley Salmon, Clark Glymour, Peter Achinstein, Penelope Maddy, …). I’ll argue that how this story is told distorts both what the work was and its significance, and draw morals for the understanding of how theories can be or fail to be empirically grounded.
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  23. The only necessity is verbal necessity.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1977 - Journal of Philosophy 74 (2):71-85.
  24.  45
    Representational of conditional probabilities.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1976 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 5 (3):417-430.
  25. Rovelli’s World.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2010 - Foundations of Physics 40 (4):390-417.
    Carlo Rovelli’s inspiring “Relational Quantum Mechanics” serves several aims at once: it provides a new vision of what the world of quantum mechanics is like, and it offers a program to derive the theory’s formalism from a set of simple postulates pertaining to information processing. I propose here to concentrate entirely on the former, to explore the world of quantum mechanics as Rovelli depicts it. It is a fascinating world in part because of Rovelli’s reliance on the information-theory approach to (...)
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  26. What is Scientific Realism?Anjan Chakravartty & Bas C. van Fraassen - 2018 - Spontaneous Generations 9 (1):12-25.
    Decades of debate about scientific realism notwithstanding, we find ourselves bemused by what different philosophers appear to think it is, exactly. Does it require any sort of belief in relation to scientific theories and, if so, what sort? Is it rather typified by a certain understanding of the rationality of such beliefs? In the following dialogue we explore these questions in hopes of clarifying some convictions about what scientific realism is, and what it could or should be. En route, we (...)
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  27.  82
    Meaning relations among predicates.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1967 - Noûs 1 (2):161-179.
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  28. (1 other version)To save the phenomena.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1976 - Journal of Philosophy 73 (18):623-632.
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  29. Representation: The problem for structuralism.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2006 - Philosophy of Science 73 (5):536-547.
    What does it mean to embed the phenomena in an abstract structure? Or to represent them by doing so? The semantic view of theories runs into a severe problem if these notions are construed either naively, in a metaphysical way, or too closely on the pattern of the earlier syntactic view. Constructive empiricism and structural realism will then share those difficulties. The problem will be posed as in Reichenbach's The Theory of Relativity and A Priori Knowledge, and realist reactions will (...)
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  30. From a view of science to a new empiricism.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2007 - In Bradley John Monton (ed.), Images of empiricism: essays on science and stances, with a reply from Bas C. van Fraassen. New York: Oxford University Press.
  31.  18
    The Experimental Side of Modeling.Isabelle F. Peschard & Bas C. Van Fraassen (eds.) - 2018 - Minneapolis: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science.
    An innovative, multifaceted approach to scientific experiments as designed by and shaped through interaction with the modeling process The role of scientific modeling in mediation between theories and phenomena is a critical topic within the philosophy of science, touching on issues from climate modeling to synthetic models in biology, high energy particle physics, and cognitive sciences. Offering a radically new conception of the role of data in the scientific modeling process as well as a new awareness of the problematic aspects (...)
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  32.  67
    (1 other version)Replies to discussion on the Empirical Stance.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2004 - Philosophical Studies 121 (2):171-192.
  33.  98
    Reflection and conditionalization: Comments on Michael Rescorla.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2023 - Noûs 57 (3):539-552.
    Rescorla explores the relation between Reflection, Conditionalization, and Dutch book arguments in the presence of a weakened concept of sure loss and weakened conditions of self‐transparency for doxastic agents. The literature about Reflection and about Dutch Book arguments, though overlapping, are distinct, and its history illuminates the import of Rescorla's investigation. With examples from a previous debate in the 70s and results about Reflection and Conditionalization in the 80s, I propose a way of seeing the epistemic enterprise in the light (...)
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  34. From Vicious Circle to Infinite Regress, and Back Again.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1992 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992:6-29.
    The attempt to formulate a viable empiricist and non-foundationalist epistemology of science faces four problems here confronted. The first is an apparent loss of objectivity in science, in the conditions of use of models in applied science. The second derives from the theory-infection of scientific language, with an apparent loss of objective conditions of truth and reference. The third, often cited as objection to The Scientific Image, is the apparent theory-dependence of the distinction between what is and is not observable. (...)
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  35. Modeling and Measurement: The Criterion of Empirical Grounding.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2012 - Philosophy of Science 79 (5):773-784.
    A scientific theory offers models for the phenomena in its domain; these models involve theoretical quantities, and a model's structure is the set of relations it imposes on these quantities. A fundamental demand in scientific practice is for those quantities to be clearly and feasibly related to measurement. This demand for empirical grounding can be articulated by displaying the theory-dependent criteria for a procedure to count as a measurement and for identifying the quantity it measures.
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  36. (1 other version)Putnam's paradox: Metaphysical realism revamped and evaded.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1997 - Philosophical Perspectives 11:17-42.
    Hilary Putnam's argument against metaphysical realism (commonly referred to as the "model theoretic argument") has now enjoyed two decades of discussion.(1) The text is rich and contains variously construable arguments against variously construed philosophical positions. David Lewis isolated one argument and called it "Putnam's Paradox".(2) That argument is clear and concise; so is the paradoxical conclusion it purports to demonstrate; and so is Lewis' paradox-avoiding solution. His solution involves a position I call "anti-nominalism": not only are classes real, but they (...)
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  37. Possibilities and Paradox; An Introduction to Modal and Many-Valued Logic.J. C. Beall & Bas C. van Fraassen - 2005 - Studia Logica 79 (2):310-313.
  38.  34
    Conditionalization, a new argument for.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1999 - Topoi 18 (2):93-96.
    Probabilism in epistemology does not have to be of the Bayesian variety. The probabilist represents a person''s opinion as a probability function; the Bayesian adds that rational change of opinion must take the form of conditionalizing on new evidence. I will argue that this is the correct procedure under certain special conditions. Those special conditions are important, and instantiated for example in scientific experimentation, but hardly universal. My argument will be related to the much maligned Reflection Principle (van Fraassen, 1984, (...)
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  39.  38
    The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1974 - Synthese 29 (1/4):291.
  40. `World' is not a count noun.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1995 - Noûs 29 (2):139-157.
    The word "world" has in fact many ordinary uses as a count noun; I shall discuss some of them below.(2) There is however also a distinctive philosophical use found in recent ontology (in the sense in which Quine reintroduced this term in analytic philosophy, for theories about what there is). As to this philosophical use, I shall argue that there is no reason to think that it refers to anything, if indeed it is intelligible at all.
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  41. Against Transcendental Empiricism.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1994 - In The Question of Hermeneutics. pp. 309-335.
    What is empiricism? There can be no authoritative answer to any such question. A historian of philosophy can at best try to call what is common to philosophers who either identified themselves, or have traditionally been identified, as empiricists. But what has set those philosophers apart from others, and especially from those whom they criticized, may not be captured in common views or doctrines. The historian may, in trying to fix the label, rely tacitly on a view of what philosophical (...)
     
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  42. Science as representation: Flouting the criteria.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2004 - Philosophy of Science 71 (5):794-804.
    Criteria of adequacy for scientific representation of the phenomena pertain to accuracy and truth. But that representation is selective and may require distortion even in the selected parameters; this point is intimately connected with the fact that representation is intentional, and its adequacy relative to its particular purpose. Since observation and measurement are perspectival and the appearances to be saved are perspectival measurement outcomes, the question whether this “saving” is an explanatory relation provides a new focus for the realist/antirealist debate. (...)
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  43. Identity over time: Objectively, subjectively.Bas C. van Fraassen & Isabelle Peschard - 2008 - Philosophical Quarterly 58 (230):15-35.
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  44.  76
    On stance and rationality.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2011 - Synthese 178 (1):155 - 169.
  45.  69
    Meaning relations and modalities.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1969 - Noûs 3 (2):155-167.
    Modalities explained through the idea of a logical space.
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  46. Science, Materialism, and False Consciousness.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1996 - In Bas van Fraassen (ed.), Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology: Essays in Honor of Alvin Plantinga's Theory of Knowledge. Rowman Littlefield. pp. 149-182.
    As activity, science has become a large-scale cultural phenomenon. As product, it is drawn on by industry, agriculture, and medicine, thus affecting not only the scene of its activity but all the rest of the world as well. Western philosophy has always harboured a tradition which regards scientific inquiry as a paradigm for rational inquiry in general. Yet almost every philosopher in that tradition has pointed to limits of this paradigm and its scope.
     
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  47.  15
    Current Issues in Quantum Logic.Enrico G. Beltrametti & Bas C. Van Fraassen - 2012 - Springer.
    These are the proceedings of the Workshop on Quantum Logic held in Erice (Sicily), December 2 - 9, 1979, at the Ettore Hajorana Centre for Scientific Culture. A conference of this sort was originally proposed by Giuliano Toraldo di Francia, who suggested the idea to Antonino Zichichi, and thus laid the foundation for the Workshop. To both of them we express our appreciation and thanks, also on behalf of the other participants, for having made this conference possible. There were approximately (...)
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  48.  20
    Probabilistic Semantics Objectified: I. Postulates and Logics.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1981 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 10 (3):371-394.
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  49. Scientific structuralism: Structuralism(s) about science: Some common problems.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2007 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 81 (1):45–61.
  50. Wilfrid Sellars on Scientific Realism.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1975 - Dialogue 14 (4):606-616.
    There are a number of dimensions to the realism-nominalism controversy. The topics of debate comprise: necessary connections and causality, dispositions and counterfactuals, space and time, the existence of abstract entities and mathematical objects, the existence of the theoretical entities of science. On all these except the last, Sellars takes a non-realist line: and on all these except the last, I agree with him to the extent that I presently have an opinion on them. But Sellars is a scientific realist, encapsulating (...)
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