Three contrasting approaches to the epistemology of argument are presented. Each one is naturalistic, drawing upon successful practices as the basis for epistemological virtue. But each looks at very different sorts of practices and they differ greatly as to the manner with which relevant practices may be described. My own contribution relies on a metamathematical reconstruction of mature science, and as such, is a radical break with the usual approaches within the theory of argument.

Theories in the usual sense, as characterized by a language and a set of theorems in that language ("statement view"), are related to theories in the structuralist sense, in turn characterized by a set of potential models and a subset thereof as models ("non-statement view", J. Sneed, W. Stegmüller). It is shown that reductions of theories in the structuralist sense (that is, functions on structures) give rise to so-called "representations" of theories in the statement sense and vice versa, where representations (...) are understood as functions that map sentences of one theory into another theory. It is argued that commensurability between theories should be based on functions on open formulas and open terms so that reducibility does not necessarily imply commensurability. This is in accordance with a central claim by Stegmüller on the compatibility of reducibility and incommensurability that has recently been challenged by D. Pearce. (shrink)

Inter-theoretical reduction has always been a major topic in the structuralist philosophy of science. This paper reviews criteria of adequacy which were put forward by Adams, Sneed, Stegmuller, Mayr, Pearce, Kamlah, and Mormann. The criteria are formalized in a simplified structuralist model, and the logical relations between them are investigated. It turns out that various parts of these criteria are incompatible.

This paper is an investigation into what could be a goodexplication of ``theory S is reducible to theory T''''. Ipresent an axiomatic approach to reducibility, which is developedmetamathematically and used to evaluate most of the definitionsof ``reducible'''' found in the relevant literature. Among these,relative interpretability turns out to be most convincing as ageneral reducibility concept, proof-theoreticalreducibility being its only serious competitor left. Thisrelation is analyzed in some detail, both from the point of viewof the reducibility axioms and of modal logic.

The aim of this paper is to characterize the various structuralist reduction concepts as structure-preserving maps in a succinct and unifying way. To begin with, some important intuitive adequacy conditions are discussed that a good (structuralist) reduction concept should satisfy. Having reconstructed these intuitive conditions in the structuralist framework, it turns out that they divide into two mutually incompatible sets of requirements. Accordingly there exist (at least) two essentially different types of structuralist reduction concepts: the first type stresses the existence (...) of a deductive or inferential link between the reducing and the reduced theory; the second type emphasizes the greater explanatory power the reducing theory should have in comparison with the reduced theory. The problem of the incompatibility of equally plausible reduction concepts is treated in the last section and a proposal is made for its solution consisting in the definition of a multiple synthetizing reduction relation. (shrink)

The thesis of the empirical underdetermination of theories (U-thesis) maintains that there are incompatible theories which are empirically equivalent. Whether this is an interesting thesis depends on how the term incompatible is understood. In this paper a structural explication is proposed. More precisely, the U-thesis is studied in the framework of the model theoretic or emantic approach according to which theories are not to be taken as linguistic entities, but rather as families of mathematical structures. Theories of similarity structures are (...) studied as a paradigmatic case. The structural approach further reveals that the U-thesis is related to problems of uniqueness in the representational theory of measurement, questions of geometric conventionalism, and problems of structural underdetermination in mathematics. (shrink)

In “Ontological realism: Methodology or misdirection?” I offered a detailed critique of the position referred to as “realism” taken by Barry Smith and Werner Ceusters. This position is claimed to serve as the basis for a “realist methodology” that they seek to impose on the development of scientific ontologies, particularly within the biomedical sciences. Here, in part responding to a reply to those criticisms by Smith and Ceusters, I return the focus to an examination of fundamental incoherencies in this realist (...) approach and propose an alternative that is amenable to much of what Smith and Ceusters hope to accomplish. And I sketch what I believe is needed to advance ontology theory and practice in the sciences. (shrink)

Intertheoretic relations are an important topic in the philosophy of science. However, since their classical discussion by Ernest Nagel, such relations have mostly been restricted to relations between pairs of theories in the natural sciences. This paper presents a case study of a new type of intertheoretic relation that is inspired by Montague’s analysis of the linguistic syntax-semantics relation. The paper develops a simple model of this relation. To motivate the adoption of our new model, we show that this model (...) extends the scope of application of the Nagelian models and that it shares the epistemological advantages of the Nagelian model. The latter is achieved in a Bayesian framework. (shrink)

The paper presents an example of unified theory bearing interest from both a historical and systematic point of view. The example is chosen from evolutionary population genetics (neo-Darwinian synthetic theory). It exhibits various aspects of theoretical change in science that have been shown in Part I (Geiger, 1988) to be characteristic of syntheses of theories.

Summary The concept of unified theory is defined in logical and abstract semantic terms, and employed in the analysis of relations between empirical scientific theories. The conceptual framework of the approach applies to binary relations such as the reduction or replacement of one theory by another, and to multiple intertheory relations. Historically, unified theories tend to arise within the contexts of scientific conflicts which they may show susceptible of solution even in the most controversial cases of the logical incompatibility or (...) conceptual incommensurability of competing theories. These conclusions are exemplified by the Planck-Einstein quantum theory of thermal radiation. The analysis shows in which sense it can, and in which it cannot, be said that this theory unifies Wien's law and the Rayleigh-Jeans law of black-body radiation. (shrink)