The aim of this paper is, on the one hand, to critically investigate Kuhn’s stance on the assessment of the pursuit worthiness of scientific theories, and, on the other hand, to show the actuality of some of Kuhn’s points on this issue, in view of their critical analysis. To this end we show that Kuhn presents certain tools, which may help scientists to overcome communication breakdowns when engaging in the process of rational deliberation regarding the question whether a theory is (...) worthy of further pursuit. These tools are persuasion, translation and interpretation. However, we argue that the perspective of epistemic semantic monism present in Kuhn’s work obstructs the full applicability of these tools. We show that dropping this perspective makes the notions of persuasion and interpretation more fruitful, and moreover, allows for a pluralism of scientific theories and practices that complements the pluralism based on disagreement among scientists, emphasized by Kuhn. (shrink)

This contribution provides an assessment of the epistemological role of scientific models. The prevalent view that all scientific models are representations of the world is rejected. This view points to a unified way of resolving epistemic issues for scientific models. The emerging consensus in philosophy of science that models have many different epistemic roles in science is presented and defended.

This is a collection of my essays in the philosophy of science which have been translated into Spanish.

This book argues for the need to put into practice a profound and comprehensive intellectual revolution, affecting to a greater or lesser extent all branches of scientific and technological research, scholarship and education. This intellectual revolution differs, however, from the now familiar kind of scientific revolution described by Kuhn. It does not primarily involve a radical change in what we take to be knowledge about some aspect of the world, a change of paradigm. Rather it involves a radical change in (...) the fundamental, overall intellectual aims and methods of inquiry. At present inquiry is devoted to the enhancement of knowledge. This needs to be transformed into a kind of rational inquiry having as its basic aim to enhance personal and social wisdom. This new kind of inquiry gives intellectual priority to the personal and social problems we encounter in our lives as we strive to realize what is desirable and of value – problems of knowledge and technology being intellectually subordinate and secondary. For this new kind of inquiry, it is what we do and what we are that ultimately matters: our knowledge is but an aspect of our life and being. (shrink)

Karl Popper is famous for having proposed that science advances by a process of conjecture and refutation. He is also famous for defending the open society against what he saw as its arch enemies – Plato and Marx. Popper’s contributions to thought are of profound importance, but they are not the last word on the subject. They need to be improved. My concern in this book is to spell out what is of greatest importance in Popper’s work, what its failings (...) are, how it needs to be improved to overcome these failings, and what implications emerge as a result. The book consists of a collection of essays which dramatically develop Karl Popper’s views about natural and social science, and how we should go about trying to solve social problems. Criticism of Popper’s falsificationist philosophy of natural science leads to a conception of science that I call aim-oriented empiricism. This makes explicit metaphysical theses concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe that are an implicit part of scientific knowledge – implicit in the way science excludes all theories that are not explanatory, even those that are more successful empirically than accepted theories. Aim-oriented empiricism has major implications, not just for the academic discipline of philosophy of science, but for science itself. Popper generalized his philosophy of science of falsificationism to arrive at a new conception of rationality – critical rationalism – the key methodological idea of Popper’s profound critical exploration of political and social issues in his The Open Society and Its Enemies, and The Poverty of Historicism. This path of Popper, from scientific method to rationality and social and political issues is followed here, but the starting point is aim-oriented empiricism rather than falsificationism. Aim-oriented empiricism is generalized to form a conception of rationality I call aim-oriented rationalism. This has far-reaching implications for political and social issues, for the nature of social inquiry and the humanities, and indeed for academic inquiry as a whole. The strategies for tackling social problems that arise from aim-oriented rationalism improve on Popper’s recommended strategies of piecemeal social engineering and critical rationalism, associated with Popper’s conception of the open society. This book thus sets out to develop Popper’s philosophy in new and fruitful directions. The theme of the book, in short, is to discover what can be learned from scientific progress about how to achieve social progress towards a better world. (shrink)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1996.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1991.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2008.

In 1675, Burchard de Volder became the first university physics professor to introduce the demonstration of experiments into his lectures and to create a special university classroom, The Leiden Physics Theatre, for this specific purpose. This is surprising for two reasons: first, early pre-Newtonian experiment is commonly associated with Italy and England, and second, de Volder is committed to Cartesian philosophy, including the view that knowledge gathered through the senses is subject to doubt, while that deducted from first principles is (...) certain. On the surface, it is curious that such a man would bring experiments to university physics. After all, in demonstrating experiments to his students, he was teaching them through their senses, not reason. However, if we consider the institutional context of de Volder’s teaching, we come to see de Volder’s Cartesian experimentalism as representative of a certain form of pre-Newtonian Dutch Cartesian science, as well as part of a larger tradition of teaching through observation at the University of Leiden. Considering de Volder’s institutional context will help us see that de Volder’s experimentalism was not in spite of his Cartesianism, but motivated by it. This paper will describe de Volder’s physics curriculum, the Theatre in which it was taught and how his work predates similar efforts in other European Universities. The second part will consider three aspects of the culture at the University of Leiden: a tradition of teaching through observation, a particular reception of Cartesianism, and an eclectic approach to the New Philosophy. The concluding portion shows how de Volder would have understood his enterprise in Cartesian terms. (shrink)

This essay evaluates the epistemic potential of the scientific method of 'thought experiments', i.e. how far one can progress in science by just thinking about experimental situations without doing real empirical research. The analysis of many episodes from the history of science suggests that thought experiments play an essential role in the formation of new conceptual and normative frames during phases of revolutionary theory change. Thought experiments do not tell us, how things are, but how they might be explained, thus (...) allowing us to reflect the intentional components within scientific theories. The author later wrote a Dr.-phil.-thesis on this subject: "Die Methode des Gedankenexperiments. Untersuchung zur Rationalität naturwissenschaftlicher Theoriereformen." (Bremen University, submitted October 5th 2001, summa cum laude) an abridged version of which has been published in the book: Ulrich Kühne, Die Methode des Gedankenexperiments. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag 2005. 410 pages, ISBN: 978-3-518-29342-3. (shrink)

: The study of perfection, progress and evolution is a central theme in the history of ideas. This thesis explores this theme seen and understood as part of a discourse in the new fields of anthropology, sociology and psychology in the nineteenth century. A particular focus is on the stance taken by philosophers, scientists and writers in the discussion of theories of human physical and mental evolution, as well as on their views concerning the nature of social progress and historical (...) change. The wisdom and feasibility of improving the human species is discussed alongside an analysis of new methods of investigating and measuring physical and mental attributes of the human organism.The instruments used to assess the development of mind, body and society are described, and are viewed as part of an increased emphasis on the use of technology as an integral part of modern life, and as a means toward the ordered gathering of information in social-scientific practice. An international perspective is taken by observing the way in which ideas about the physical and mental development of humankind was discussed in light and consequence of English and European scientific exploration in the Southern Hemisphere. Further, an evaluation is made of the manner of the spread of new thought in the social sciences from the intellectual and cultural 'centre' of England and Europe to the Anglo-European community located at the 'periphery' in Australia in the late nineteenth century. In particular the educative role played by the non-professional enthusiast as a pivotal conduit for the dissemination of these ideas is highlighted and linked back to a significant tradition of amateur scholarship as a central phenomenon in the study of the history of ideas. (shrink)

Since the publication of Kitcher’s influential paper The Division of Cognitive Labor, some philosophers wondered about these two related issues: (1) which is the optimal distribution of cognitive efforts among rival methods within a scientific community?, and (2) whether and how can a community achieve such an optimal distribution? Though not committing to any specific answer to question (1), I claim that issue (2) does not depend exclusively on an invisible hand like mechanism, since both intra-scientific and extra-scientific institutions may (...) play a major role. Finally, I examine some practical difficulties of reallocating scientists from a method to another, which leads to stress the importance of well-planned training and recruitment. (shrink)

Over the last 4 or so decades, Dudley Shapere has developed a rich and interesting alternative to the Kuhnian “relativist” account of science and its development. This paper is a review of this alternative viewpoint. It is a critical evaluation of Shapere’s arguments in support of the claim that radical methodological change can be allowed in science without thereby embracing relativism (and without ending with an irrational account of scientific change).

The argument from design is one of the most widely debated arguments for the existence of God. There has been much written in support of and in criticism of the argument's basic structure and conclusion. I shall attempt to clarify these positions, and to argue that the theistic account provides a more rationally justified explanation of human life on earth than the atheistic account. Many philosophers think that any proof for the existence of God is mere "metaphysical speculation." Many times (...) these philosophers use the criteria of scientific empiricism as the standard for an "acceptable" scientific theory, regardless of the subject matter. I shall formulate the argument from design as an empirical scientific theory according to the school of scientific falsificationism as stated by Karl Popper. The principal literature to be investigated in this study will be the most recent articles and texts which discuss relevant scientific data, and their philosophical implications for the argument from design. The results of this investigation demonstrate that it is possible to formulate an argument for the existence of God which meets all of the criteria of the falsificationists school of scientific empiricism. (shrink)

I am arguing that it is only by concentrating on the role of models in theory construction, interpretation and change, that one can study the progress of science sensibly. I define the level at which these models operate as a level above the purely empirical (consisting of various systems in reality) but also indeed below that of the fundamental formal theories (expressed linguistically). The essentially multi-interpretability of the theory at the general, abstract linguistic level, implies that it can potentially make (...) claims about systems in reality, other than the particular one which originally induced it. Any so-called correspondence relation between (systems in) reality and the entities and relations in some scientific theory, thus consists of two jumps or interpretations: from the theory (linguistic level) to some model of it (constructural level); and from there to some system in reality. Clearly then the level of fundamental theories cannot be ignored la Nancy Cartwright - in studying the relations between a theory and reality, because the particular features of the theory (the various systems in reality onto which the theory can be mapped) cannot be studied without the underlying knowledge that these systems have one common feature, namely that each of them is the range (or other pole) of a mapping of a context-specific model of the theory - which in itself, is a mapping, or more specifically, an interpretation of the theory. I am also claiming that the nature of these levels and the relations between them necessitate an epistemological rather than an ontological notion of truth criteria, and a referential rather than a representational link between science and reality. (shrink)

L'article propose une analyse comparative des positions de Popper et de Kuhn sur quatre points liés : la comparaison des « cadres théoriques » ou des « paradigmes scientifiques » ; le pouvoir contraignant que sont susceptibles d'avoir les arguments invoqués dans les discussions critiques ; les éléments qui, en fin de compte, pèsent ou doivent peser sur les praticiens lorsqu'il s'agit d'élire un cadre théorique au détriment d'un autre ; et enfin, la conception qu'ont chacun des deux auteurs de (...) ce que Kuhn a nommé la « science normale ». On commence par discuter en détails les comptes-rendus dans lesquels Popper explique pourquoi les choix scientifiques de Galilée et de Kepler sont conformes à la méthodologie falsificationniste. On montre de là, premièrement, qu'à suivre à la lettre ces comptes-rendus, il faut conclure que les données expérimentales non problématiques – les énoncés de base unanimement acceptés – ne suffisent pas à elles seules à imposer en droit la falsification empirique (puisque sur la base des mêmes mesures de Tycho Brahé, Kepler a eu raison d'admettre que l'hypothèse des orbites circulaires était empiriquement réfutée, tandis que Galilée a eu raison d'admettre le contraire). On montre alors, deuxièmement, qu'au-delà des différences importantes entre Popper et Kuhn au niveau des lexiques et de l'idéal de scientificité, la méthodologie poppérienne, bien qu'elle se revendique « logique », ne donne concrètement pas plus que la conception kuhnienne pourtant si souvent stigmatisée comme « sociologique », lorsqu'il s'agit d'indiquer ce qu'un bon scientifique devrait faire, que ce soit en période « révolutionnaire » ou en période de « science normale ». (shrink)

What is wrong with ad hoc hypotheses? Ever since Popper’s falsificationist account of adhocness, there has been a lively philosophical discussion about what constitutes adhocness in scientific explanation, and what, if anything, distinguishes legitimate auxiliary hypotheses from illicit ad hoc ones. This paper draws upon distinct examples from pseudoscience to provide us with a clearer view as to what is troubling about ad hoc hypotheses. In contrast with other philosophical proposals, our approach retains the colloquial, derogative meaning of adhocness, and (...) calls attention to the way in which the context of a theoretical move bears on the charge of adhocness. We also discuss the role of motivations implicit in the concept of adhocness, and the way ad hoc moves draw on theory-internal rationalizations. (shrink)

Despite having put the concept of HPS on the institutional map, N.R. Hanson’s distinctive account of the interdependence between history of science and philosophy of science has been mostly forgotten, and misinterpreted where it is remembered. It is argued that Hanson’s account is worthy of renewed attention and extension since, through its special emphasis on a variety of different normative criteria, it provides the framework for a fruitful and transformative interaction between the two disciplines. This essay also examines two separate (...) threads of Hanson’s account of philosophy of science: his analysis of the conceptual dynamics of science and of the interrelation of the history and philosophy of science. While the two strands appear incongruent, and were perhaps inconsistent, a new interpretation of them is offered which is both consistent with Hanson’s fundamental intuitions and defensible in its own right. It is demonstrated that Hanson’s account compares favorably with those of Kuhn and Lakatos, and that it may provide a constructive means of scaling the barriers erected by fears of the genetic fallacy and ‘whiggish’ history. (shrink)