We inquire into the question whether the Aristotelean or classical \emph{ideal} of science has been realised by the Model Revolution, initiated at Stanford University during the 1950ies and spread all around the world of philosophy of science --- \emph{salute} P.\ Suppes. The guiding principle of the Model Revolution is: \emph{a scientific theory is a set of structures in the domain of discourse of axiomatic set-theory}, characterised by a set-theoretical predicate. We expound some critical reflections on the Model Revolution; the conclusions (...) will be that the philosophical problem of what a \emph{scientific theory} is has \emph{not} been solved yet --- \emph{pace} P.\ Suppes. While reflecting critically on the Model Revolution, we also explore a proposal of how to complete the Revolution and briefly address the intertwined subject of \emph{scientific representation}, which has come to occupy center stage in philosophy of science over the past decade. (shrink)

In the present paper Cohen's and Lee's theory of social conformity and Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance are first reconstructed according to a revised form of the so-called “structuralist theory-conception” developed by Sneed and Stegmüller with their collaborators. Then the two theories are conceptually correlated in the sense of a technical notion of conceptual correlation which can be shown to be an essential generalization of the theory-relations handled by the structuralist. It will turn out that there is no unique way (...) to connect these theories with each other. However, it is shown that two ontologically and conceptually different theories can be correlated. This in turn gives in principle an opportunity to compare critically these two theories given that the constructed conceptual correlation is sufficiently sound and that the theories are empirically testable to a sufficient extent. (shrink)

The project of integrated HPS has occupied philosophers of science in one form or another since at least the 1960s. Yet, despite this substantial interest in bringing together philosophical and historical reflections on the nature of science, history of science and formal philosophy of science remain as divided as ever. In this paper, I will argue that the continuing separation between historical and formal philosophy of science is ill-founded. I will argue for this in both abstract and concrete terms. At (...) the abstract level, I reconstruct two possible arguments for the incompatibility of historical and formal philosophy of science and argue that they are both wanting. At the concrete level, I discuss how historical and formal philosophy of science have been brought together in practice, namely: in the form of a largely forgotten research tradition that I will refer to here as the study of formalized macro-units. After a brief exposition, I argue that this research tradition has been unduly overlooked by historically minded philosophers of science. Bringing together these observations, I argue that the divide between historical and formal philosophy of science is not grounded in any substantive arguments, but can be primarily attributed to disciplinary happenstance. (shrink)

In this article I give an overview of some recent work in philosophy of science dedicated to analysing the scientific process in terms of (conceptual) mathematical models of theories and the various semantic relations between such models, scientific theories, and aspects of reality. In current philosophy of science, the most interesting questions centre around the ways in which writers distinguish between theories and the mathematical structures that interpret them and in which they are true, i.e. between scientific theories as linguistic (...) systems and their non-linguistic models. In philosophy of science literature there are two main approaches to the structure of scientific theories, the statement or syntactic approach -- advocated by Carnap, Hempel and Nagel -- and the non- statement or semantic approach --advocated, among others, by Suppes, the structuralists, Beth, Van Fraassen, Giere, Wojcicki. In conclusion, I briefly review some of the usual realist inspired questions about the possibility and character of relations between scientific theories and reality as implied by the various approaches I discuss in the course of the article. The models of a scientific theory should indeed be adequate to the phenomena, but if the theory is 'adequate' to (true in) its conceptual (mathematical) models as well, we have a model-theoretic realism that addresses the possible meaning and reference of 'theoretical entities' without relapsing into the metaphysics typical of the usual scientific realist approaches. (shrink)

In this paper, the (possible) role of model theory forstructuralism and structuralist definitions of ``reduction'' arediscussed. Whereas it is somewhat undecisive with respect tothe first point – discussing some pro's and con's ofthe model theoretic approach when compared with a syntacticand a structuralist one – it emphasizes that severalstructuralist definitions of ``reducibility'' do not providegenerally acceptable explications of ``reducibility''. This claimrests on some mathematical results proved in this paper.

Syntactic approaches in the philosophy of science, which are based on formalizations in predicate logic, are often considered in principle inferior to semantic approaches, which are based on formalizations with the help of structures. To compare the two kinds of approach, I identify some ambiguities in common semantic accounts and explicate the concept of a structure in a way that avoids hidden references to a specific vocabulary. From there, I argue that contrary to common opinion (i) unintended models do not (...) pose a significant problem for syntactic approaches to scientific theories, (ii) syntactic approaches can be at least as language-independent as semantic ones, and (iii) in syntactic approaches, scientific theories can be as well connected to the world as in semantic ones. Based on these results, I argue that syntactic and semantic approaches fare equally well when it comes to (iv) ease of application, (v) accommodating the use of models in the sciences, and (vi) capturing the theory-observation relation. (shrink)

La parution de la monographic de Sneed,The Logical Structure of Mathematical Physics a suscité un renouveau d'intérêt en philosophie contemporaine des sciences. Cet ouvrage arrivait à un moment où l'épistémologie des sciences, telle que développée dans les milieux germaniques et anglo-saxons, accusait de graves insuffisances dans la reconstruction rationnelle du développement historique des théories physiques. Mis sur la défensive par les thèses et arguments historiques de Kuhn et de Feyerabend, ces milieux « orthodoxes » devaient reconnaitre l'état embryonnaire de ce (...) qui devait être uneépistémologie diachroniquedes sciences, une épistémologie du changement scientifique où les méthodes d'analyse formelle puissent être aussi mises á contribution. A cela s'ajoutait un certain malaise, une certaine stagnation de la problématique, plus synchronique, de l'approche traditionnelle issue du mouvement empiriste logique. Le probleme de la dichotomielangage théorique—langage observationnel, ainsi que son fidèle compagnon, le problème destermes théoriques, le statut épistémologique desrègies de correspondance, la dèfinition du concept d'analyticitéen science, autant de questions qui avaient été discutées et critiquées, à maintes reprises, pour aboutir à des résultats peu concluants aux yeux des philosophes, comme à ceux des physiciens préoccupés des fondements de leur discipline et à qui la teneur de cette discussion semblait souvent étrangère à la pratique scientifique. (shrink)

This dissertation consists of three parts. Part I is a defense of an artificial language methodology in philosophy and a historical and systematic defense of the logical empiricists' application of an artificial language methodology to scientific theories. These defenses provide a justification for the presumptions of a host of criteria of empirical significance, which I analyze, compare, and develop in part II. On the basis of this analysis, in part III I use a variety of criteria to evaluate the scientific (...) status of intelligent design, and further discuss confirmation, reduction, and concept formation. (shrink)