Fundamentos de filosofía de la ciencia es una obra de carácter general destinada principalmente a servir de guía a alumnos y profesores en la ensañanza universitaria de esta disciplina, en especial para los estudios de Filosofía, pero también para los de Humanidades y Ciencias Humanas y Naturales. La obra está estructurada en diferentes niveles para facilitar su utilización como libro de texto, tanto en cursos introductorios generales como en seminarios específicos. Aunque el público universitario es su principal destinatario, se ha (...) concebido para que cualquier lector interesado en la disciplina y con determinados conocimientos previos pueda acceder, con provecho, a las diversas partes de la misma. Ha diferencia de la mayoría de introducciones a la Filosofía de la Ciencia, la orientación de esta obra no es histórica sino temática, cubriendo los diferentes ámbitos conceptuales de la disciplina. Su contenido, dado que su finalidad es presentar los fundamentos de la materia, se centra en los grandes temas clásicos de la disciplina. El núcleo temático lo conforma la triada "conceptos-leyes-teorías" en torno a cuyos componentes se presentan los restantes temas: contrastación de hipótesis, medición, explicación, relaciones interteóricas, el problema de la inducción y el cambio teórico. En tanto que introducción general de la disciplina, en esta obra no se pretende ninguna tesis metacientífica o metafilosófica sustantiva, sino exponer de forma clara los principales problemas filosóficos que plantea la actividad científica y discutir las diferentes aproximaciones a los mismos.. (shrink)

In this paper I propose clearly to distinguish four fundamental types of intertheoretical relations that may be used to represent different types of theoretical change in empirical science. These four types can be represented formally through a refined version of the set-theoretical apparatus of structuralism. They may be described as: crystallization, theory-evolution, embedding, and replacement with partial incommensurability. They will be first explicated in intuitive, informal terms, and some historical examples will be suggested for each type. In the second part (...) of the paper, the four types are characterized in structuralistic terms; the notions of a partial substructure and of a diachronic theory-net will play a central role. (shrink)

In a scientific context, ontological commitments should be considered as supervenient over accepted scientific theories. This implies that the primarily ontological notions of reduction and emergence of entities of different kinds should be reformulated in terms of relations between existing empirical theories. For this, in turn, it is most convenient to employ a model-theoretic view of scientific theories: the identity criterion of a scientific theory is essentially given by a class of models. Accordingly, reduction and emergence are to be seen (...) as particular kinds of relations between (some) models of different theories that subsume the same (or a similar) “experiential field”. The set-theoretical notion of an echelon-set proves to be crucial for this purpose: The domains in the models of the reduced theory are echelon-sets over the domains of the reducing theory. Finally, it is argued that emergence may plausibly be interpreted as akin to but weaker than reduction. (shrink)

En este trabajo sc presenta un marco general en el que desarrollar una “ontoepistemo-semántica” para las teodas científicas y sus terminos característicos. En primer lugar, se defiende la esencialidad de los aspectos ontologicos y epistemológicos para la semantica y se hacen explícitos los principios generales que constituyen dicho marco. A continuación, se aplican estos principios al análisis ontoepistemosemántico de cada uno de los tres tipos principales de términos científicos: términos relacionales y funcionales con contenido empírico, términos matemáticos puros y términos (...) para los dominios ontológicos básicos.In this paper I offer a general framework for all “ontoepistenlosemantics” of scientific theories and scientific terms. First, I argue for the essential dependence of semantics on ontological and epistemological aspects and I make explicit the general principIes that make up this frame. Then, I apply these principles to the ontoepistemosmantical analysis of the three main kinds of scientific terms: relational and functional term with empirical content, purely mathematical terms and terms for basic ontological domains. (shrink)

La finalidad de este trabajo es revisar una de las nociones centrales de la metateoría estructuralista, la noción de principio-guía, mostrar su fecundidad para abordar algunas cuestiones centrales tanto de filosofía general como de filosofía especial de la ciencia, así como de historia de la filosofía de la ciencia, y, por último, revisar y valorar algunas propuestas de elucidación de la misma. La conclusión es que se trata de una noción tan fructífera como difícil de analizar.

En este trabajo sc presenta un marco general en el que desarrollar una “ontoepistemo-semántica” para las teodas científicas y sus terminos característicos. En primer lugar, se defiende la esencialidad de los aspectos ontologicos y epistemológicos para la semantica y se hacen explícitos los principios generales que constituyen dicho marco. A continuación, se aplican estos principios al análisis ontoepistemosemántico de cada uno de los tres tipos principales de términos científicos: términos relacionales y funcionales con contenido empírico, términos matemáticos puros y términos (...) para los dominios ontológicos básicos. In this paper I offer a general framework for all “ontoepistemosemantics” of scientific theories and scientific terms. First, I argue for the essential dependence of semantics on ontological and epistemological aspects and I make explicit the general principIes that make up this frame. Then, I apply these principles to the ontoepistemosmantical analysis of the three main kinds of scientific terms: relational and functional term with empirical content, purely mathematical terms and terms for basic ontological domains. (shrink)

At present, there is a renewed interest in thoseaspects of Rudolf Carnap ''s LogischerAufbau der Welt that cannot just be reduced tothe tradition of logical positivism. There is, however,one of these aspects which seems to have beenneglected by the historical analyses of theAufbau''s background: what may be called aprogram for the mathematization of sense experience,as developed by Carnap in the most difficult partof his work, Chapter IV/A. It is the program of applying settheory and topology to the reconstruction of phenomenal (...) structures,quite independently of any other general philosophical aim.I claim that there are three forerunners of this program:Henri Poincaré''s essayPourquoi l''espace a trois dimensions, Chapter 4of Bertrand Russell ''s Our Knowledge of the ExternalWorld, and Jean Nicod''s La géométriedans le monde sensible. This article provides acomparison of these different instances of theabove-mentioned program. (shrink)

This volume contains the most extensive exposition of Latin American philosophy to date. I know of no other comparable anthology on the subject in any language. The width of its scope is quite impressive. At least for this reason, and whatever its shortcomings might be (to some of them I’ll come to speak below), it is a welcome collective work.

In two occasions a Bibliography of Structuralism has been published in Erkenntnis (1989, 1994). Since then a lot of water has flowed under the bridge and the structuralist program has shown a continuous development. The aim of the present bibliography is to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the publication of An Architectonic for Science –structuralism’s main reference work– and of its recent translation into Spanish by updating the previous bibliographies with titles which have appeared since 1994 as well as before (...) that year but which are not included in them. As in the former deliveries, this bibliography only covers books and articles that are concerned directly with the structuralist approach in the philosophy of science. We would like to thank the many colleagues who have helped us in collecting all the information. Notwithstanding we apologize in advance for the possible entries that we missed to include in this third Bibliography of Structuralism. (shrink)

Ontology should be conceived as supervenient on scientific theories. They tell us what categories of things there really are. Thus, we would have a unique system of ontology if we would attain the unity of science through a reductionist program. For this, it should be clear how a relation of intertheoretical reduction (with ontological implications) is to be conceived. A formal proposal is laid out in this paper. This allows us also to define the notion of a fundamental theory. Now, (...) it appears that, considering the state of really existing science, the idea of reductionism as based on this explication is highly implausible. However, even if this is the case, the question whether it is possible to build up a unique ontological system remains open. Its resolution depends on the notion of compatibility between fundamental theories, and its application to existing theories and their empirical bases. (shrink)

Theoria, Volume 88, Issue 4, Page 782-798, August 2022.

Na filosofia da ciência duas questões tornam-se centrais na discussão da natureza da ciência empírica: 1) o que é uma teoria (científica)? Ou seja, como é construída, como funciona? E, 2) como é que uma teoria se relaciona com sua base experiencial correspondente? Para lidar com estas duas questões, a moderna filosofia da ciência concebeu vários “modelos” (metateóricos) sobre a natureza e o funcionamento das teorias científicas. Alguns aspectos desses modelos são amplamente aceitos pela comunidade de filósofos da ciência, mas (...) outros ainda estão sendo discutidos de forma bastante controversa. Neste artigo, vamos considerar ambos tipos de aspectos. Particularmente, analisaremos como o significado dos conceitos científicos é determinado; a construção axiomática de uma teoria científica; a ideia de construção de modelos como uma ponte entre a teoria e a experiência; a tese semântica holística da ciência; a questão sobre a verdade das teorias científicas e, finalmente, a estrutura hierárquica das teorias. (shrink)