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Author: Wolfgang Stegmüller Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3642953603 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 109
Book Description
The present text originated with the intention of writing a brief reply to Feyerabend's detailed discussion of my book The Structure and Dynamics of Theories. For reasons explained in the Introduction this turned out to be an impossible undertaking. What resulted was a self-contained new approach to the structuralist view, combined with an attempt to bring it up to date by including a report on the latest developments. As matters stand it would have been unreasonable and unfair of me to ask the editors of The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science to publish this text which exceeds by far the size of an average essay. Thus, a separate publication seemed advisable. I am deeply indebted to Springer-Verlag for making this publication possible. Since the publication of the above-mentioned book I have learned a lot from the works, partly unpublished, of Professor Joseph D. Sneed, Professor Carlos Ulises Moulines, and Dr. Wolfgang Balzer. I should like to thank my co-workers Dr. Wolfgang Balzer and Dr. Matthias Varga von Kibed and my student Michael Heidelberger for many constructive, critical remarks on the first draft of the manuscript and, in addition, Dr. Balzer for collecting and orga nizing the material for the Formal Appendix. Last, but not least, I express my warm thanks to Mrs. Clara Seneca, Oldenburg, and Mr. Roberto Minio, Springer Verlag, for amending my English formulations. V Table of Contents Introduction ....................................... .
Author: Wolfgang Stegmüller Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3642953603 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 109
Book Description
The present text originated with the intention of writing a brief reply to Feyerabend's detailed discussion of my book The Structure and Dynamics of Theories. For reasons explained in the Introduction this turned out to be an impossible undertaking. What resulted was a self-contained new approach to the structuralist view, combined with an attempt to bring it up to date by including a report on the latest developments. As matters stand it would have been unreasonable and unfair of me to ask the editors of The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science to publish this text which exceeds by far the size of an average essay. Thus, a separate publication seemed advisable. I am deeply indebted to Springer-Verlag for making this publication possible. Since the publication of the above-mentioned book I have learned a lot from the works, partly unpublished, of Professor Joseph D. Sneed, Professor Carlos Ulises Moulines, and Dr. Wolfgang Balzer. I should like to thank my co-workers Dr. Wolfgang Balzer and Dr. Matthias Varga von Kibed and my student Michael Heidelberger for many constructive, critical remarks on the first draft of the manuscript and, in addition, Dr. Balzer for collecting and orga nizing the material for the Formal Appendix. Last, but not least, I express my warm thanks to Mrs. Clara Seneca, Oldenburg, and Mr. Roberto Minio, Springer Verlag, for amending my English formulations. V Table of Contents Introduction ....................................... .
Author: Hans Westmeyer Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3642840159 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 222
Book Description
Metatheoretical and, more generally, methodological analyses of psychological problems and theories have a long tradition; however, their impact on scientific practice, especially on the clarification and testing of existing psychological theories and the formulation of new ones, has so far been less than spectacular. The increased interest in theoretical psychology visible during the past ten or twenty years is associated with the hope that a change of this situation will gradually be effected. Thus, in their preface to the proceedings of the founding conference of The International Society for Theoretical Psychology, Baker et al. (1987, pp. Vf)1 take up 2 once more the objectives of a theoretical psychology formulated by Koch already in 1951: (a) Education in the methodology and logic of science. (b) Analysis of methodological or foundational problems that are more or less unique to psychology. . .. (c) Internal systematization of suggestive, but formally defective, theoretical formulations. (d) Intertranslation and differential analysis of conflicting theoretical formulations. ( e) Construction of new theory. Reflecting on possible reasons for the relative inefficacy so far of methodological and metatheoretical analyses in psychology, it seems to me that the following two have been of prime importance: (1) Many of the existing analyses are at best tenuously connected to concrete existing psychological theories, i.e., they deal with their subject matter in a too abstract, detached way. This detracts from the persuasive power which their results might otherwise have, and impedes the realization of these results within scientific practice.
Author: Geoffrey Hellman Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 110863074X Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 167
Book Description
The present work is a systematic study of five frameworks or perspectives articulating mathematical structuralism, whose core idea is that mathematics is concerned primarily with interrelations in abstraction from the nature of objects. The first two, set-theoretic and category-theoretic, arose within mathematics itself. After exposing a number of problems, the Element considers three further perspectives formulated by logicians and philosophers of mathematics: sui generis, treating structures as abstract universals, modal, eliminating structures as objects in favor of freely entertained logical possibilities, and finally, modal-set-theoretic, a sort of synthesis of the set-theoretic and modal perspectives.
Author: Theodore Sider Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 019881156X Category : Metaphysics Languages : en Pages : 246
Book Description
Metaphysics has shifted ground, moving away from necessity and possibility as the lens through which we look at things. Ted Sider shapes the agenda for the subject by exploring how this shift transforms the project of understanding the objects, properties, and quantities of the universe, and the relations between them, in terms of structures.
Author: Wolfgang Stegmüller Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3662016710 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 297
Book Description
The first part of this book, Part I, can be read from two quite distinct points of view: one, as an attempt to develop and defend the important aspects of an entirely new approach to the analysis of the structure of scientific the ories; and second, as the source of the conceptual apparatus needed for the analysis of theory dynamics and the metascientific reconstruction of T. S. Kuhn's notions of 'normal science' and 'scientific revolutions. ' In the last few years a great deal has been written about Kuhnian 'irra tionalism' and 'relativism. ' Most writers felt that they must combat it; a few thought that they must develop it further and deploy it propagandistically against a 'logic of science. ' According to the view developed in Part II of this book, both parties are on the wrong track. As far as irrationalism is concerned, it must be said that Kuhn's position itself cannot be characterized as 'irrational' in any reasonable sense of the word. His language is much too clear, and his examples are historically too well founded. (He is thoroughly aware of his frequent use of metaphorical language which, as can also be shown, is his prerogative. ) Without precedent in his work is the fact that he appears to impute irrational behavior to the practioners of the exact natural sciences (of all people!).
Author: Steven French Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0192587463 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 327
Book Description
There Are No Such Things as Theories considers the fundamental question: what is a scientific theory? It presents a range of options - from theories are sets of propositions, to theories are families of models, abstract artefacts, or fictions - and highlights the various problems they all face. In so doing it draws multiple comparisons between theories and artworks: on the one hand, theories are like certain kinds of paintings with regard to their representational capacity; on the other, they are like musical works in that they can be multiply presented. An alternative answer to the question is then offered, drawing on the metaphysics of musical works: there are no such things as theories. Nevertheless, we can still talk about them, since that talk is made true by the various practices that scientists engage in. The implications of this form of eliminativism for the realism debate is then discussed and it is concluded that this may offer a more flexible framework in which we can understand both the history and the philosophy of science in general.
Author: Steven French Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191507725 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 413
Book Description
In The Structure of the World, Steven French articulates and defends the bold claim that there are no objects. At the most fundamental level, modern physics presents us with a world of structures and making sense of that view is the central aim of the increasingly widespread position known as structural realism. Drawing on contemporary work in metaphysics and philosophy of science, as well as the 'forgotten' history of structural realism itself, French attempts to further ground and develop this position. He argues that structural realism offers the best way of balancing our need to accommodate the results of modern science with our desire to arrive at an appropriately informed understanding of the world that science presents to us. Covering not only the realism-antirealism debate, the nature of representation, and the relationship between metaphysics and science, The Structure of the World defends a form of eliminativism about objects that sets laws and symmetry principles at the heart of ontology. In place of a world of microscopic objects banging into one another and governed by the laws of physics, it offers a world of laws and symmetries, on which determinate physical properties are dependent. In presenting this account, French also tackles the distinction between mathematical and physical structures, the nature of laws, and causality in the context of modern physics, and he concludes by exploring the extent to which structural realism can be extended into chemistry and biology.
Author: Alisa Bokulich Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 9048195977 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 194
Book Description
Recently there has been a revival of interest in structuralist approaches to science. Taking their lead from scientific structuralists such as Henri Poincaré, Ernst Cassirer, and Bertrand Russell, some contemporary philosophers and scientists have argued that the most fruitful approach to solving many problems in the philosophy of science lies in focusing on the structural features of our scientific theories. Much of the work in scientific structuralism to date has been focused on the problem of scientific realism, where it has been argued that even in cases of radical theory change the most important structural features of predecessor theories are preserved. These structural realists argue that what our most successful theories get right about the world is these abstract structural features, rather than any particular ontological claims. More recently, philosophers of science have adopted structuralist approaches to many other issues in the philosophy of science, such as scientific explanation and intertheory relations. The nine articles collected in this volume, written by the leading researchers in scientific structuralism, represent some of the most important directions of research in this field. This book will be of particular interest to those philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians who are interested in the foundations of science.
Author: Wolfgang Stegmüller
Author: Wolfgang Stegmüller
Author: Hans Westmeyer
Author: Geoffrey Hellman
Author: Theodore Sider
Author: Wolfgang Stegmüller
Author: Wolfgang Balzer
Author: Steven French
Author: Steven French
Author: Jean Piaget
Author: Alisa Bokulich