This user-friendly text covers key issues in the philosophy of science in an accessible and philosophically serious way. It will prove valuable to students studying philosophy of science as well as science students. Prize-winning author Alex Rosenberg explores the philosophical problems that science raises by its very nature and method. He skilfully demonstrates that scientific explanation, laws, causation, theory, models, evidence, reductionism, probability, teleology, realism and instrumentalism actually pose the same questions that Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant and their successors (...) have grappled with for centuries. (shrink)

I critically examine the semantic view of theories to reveal the following results. First, models in science are not the same as models in mathematics, as holders of the semantic view claim. Second, when several examples of the semantic approach are examined in detail no common thread is found between them, except their close attention to the details of model building in each particular science. These results lead me to propose a deflationary semantic view, which is simply that model construction (...) is an important component of theorizing in science. This deflationary view is consistent with a naturalized approach to the philosophy of science. (shrink)

A scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs. These beliefs form the foundation of the "educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice". The nature of the "rigorous and rigid" preparation helps ensure that the received beliefs are firmly fixed in the student's mind. Scientists take great pains to defend the assumption that scientists know what the world is like...To this end, "normal science" will often suppress novelties which undermine its foundations. Research (...) is therefore not about discovering the unknown, but rather "a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education". (shrink)

Thomas S. Kuhn's classic book is now available with a new index.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that models in scientific practice can be conceived of as epistemic artifacts. Approaching models this way accommodates many such things that working scientists themselves call models but that the semantic conception of models does not duly recognize as such. That models are epistemic artifacts implies, firstly, that they cannot be understood apart from purposeful human activity; secondly, that they are somehow materialized inhabitants of the intersubjective field of that activity; and thirdly, that (...) they can function also as knowledge objects. We argue that models as epistemic artifacts provide knowledge in many other ways than just via direct representative links. To substantiate our view we use a language‐technological artifact, a parser, as an example. (shrink)

The semantic view of theoriesis one according to which theoriesare construed as models of their linguisticformulations. The implications of thisview for scientific realism have been little discussed. Contraryto the suggestion of various champions of the semantic view,it is argued that this approach does not makesupport for a plausible scientific realism anyless problematic than it might otherwise be.Though a degree of independence of theory fromlanguage may ensure safety frompitfalls associated with logical empiricism, realism cannot be entertained unless models or (abstractedand/or idealized) (...) aspects thereof are spelled out in terms of linguistic formulations (such as mathematical equations),which can be interpreted in terms of correspondencewith the world. The putative advantage of thesemantic approach – its linguistic independence – isthus of no help to the realist. I consider recent treatmentsof the model-theoretic view (Suppe, Giere, Smith), and find that although some of these accounts harbour the promiseof realism, this promise is deceptive. (shrink)

Taken as a whole, the volume provides an unparalleled survey of all the topical areas, major methods, and stances in the philosophy of science.

The book Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery, aims to explain how specific modeling practices employed by scientists are productive methods of ...

The semantic, or model-theoretic, approach to theories has recently come under criticism on two fronts: (i) it is claimed that it cannot account for the wide diversity of models employed in scientific practice—a claim which has led some to propose a “deflationary” account of models; (ii) it is further contended that the sense of “model” used by the approach differs from that given in model theory. Our aim in the present work is to articulate a possible response to these claims, (...) drawing on recent developments within the semantic approach itself. Thus, the first is answered by utilizing the notion of a “partial structure”, first introduced in this context by da Costa and French in 1990. The second claim is undermined by consideration of van Fraassen's understanding of “model” which corresponds well with that evinced by modem mathematicians. This latter discussion, in particular, has an impact on the continuing debate regarding the relative merits of the semantic and syntactic views and the developments presented here can be taken to provide further support to the former. (shrink)

This survey of major developments in North American philosophy of science begins with the mid-1960s consolidation of the disciplinary synthesis of internalist history and philosophy of science (HPS) as a response to criticisms of logical empiricism. These developments are grouped for discussion under the following headings: historical metamethodologies, scientific realisms, philosophies of the special sciences, revivals of empiricism, cognitivist naturalisms, social epistemologies, feminist theories of science, studies of experiment and the disunity of science, and studies of science as practice and (...) culture. A unifying theme of the survey is the relation between historical metamethodologists and scientific realists, which dominated philosophical work in the late 1970s. I argue that many of the alternative cognitive naturalisms, social epistemologies, and feminist theories that have been proposed can be understood as analogues to the differences between metamethodological theories of scientific rationality and realist accounts of successful reference to real causal processes. Recent work on experiment, scientific practice, and the culture of science may, however, challenge the underlying conception of the field according to which realism and historical rationalism (or their descendants) are the important alternatives available, and thus may take philosophy of science in new directions. (shrink)

This book is the culmination of over twenty years of work toward a pedagogical theory that promotes experiential learning of model-laden theory and inquiry in science.

It is now part and parcel of the official philosophical wisdom that models are essential to the acquisition and organisation of scientific knowledge. It is also generally accepted that most models represent their target systems in one way or another. But what does it mean for a model to represent its target system? I begin by introducing three conundrums that a theory of scientific representation has to come to terms with and then address the question of whether the semantic view (...) of theories, which is the currently most widely accepted account of theories and models, provides us with adequate answers to these questions. After having argued in some detail that it does not, I conclude by pointing out in what direction a tenable account of scientific representation might be sought. (shrink)

The positivistic Received View construed scientific theories syntactically as axiomatic calculi where theoretical terms were given a partial semantic interpretation via correspondence rules connecting them to observation statements. This paper assesses what, with hindsight, seem the most important defects in the Received View; surveys the main proposed successor analyses to the Received View--various Semantic Conception versions and the Structuralist Analysis; evaluates how well they avoid those defects; examines what new problems they face and where the most promising require further development (...) or leave unanswered questions; explores implications of recent work on models for understanding theories; and rebuts the few criticisms of the Semantic Conception that have surfaced. (shrink)

En esta trabajo se analiza la relación existente entre las propuestas de Mendel, de los "redescubridores" -de Vries, Correns y Tschermak-, de Bateson y colaboradores y de Morgan y discípulos, e.e. la historia de la genética "clásica", en términos de "inconmensurabilidad", de forma tal de capturar y precisar tanto la idea de que entre éstas se dan ciertas discontinuidades y rupturas como de que éstas tienen "algo" que ver de algún modo entre sí. En particular, se introducen, con ayuda del (...) marco conceptual de la metateoría estructuralista, y aplican al presente caso, los conceptos de "inconmensurabilidad teórica" y "comparabilidad empírica". In this paper the existing relationship between the proposals of Mendel, the "rediscoverers" -de Vries, Correns and Tschermak-, Bateson and collaborators and Morgan and disciples, e.g. the history of "classical" genetics is analyzed in terms of "incommensurability", in such a way to capture and to precise so much the idea that among them take place some discontinuities and ruptures as well as that they have "something" to do with each other. In particular, the concepts of "theoretical incommensurability" and "empirical comparability" are introduced with the help of the conceptual framework of the structuralist view of theories and applied to this case. (shrink)