Some Key Controversies in the Philosophy of Science Larry Laudan. the mouths of my realist, relativist, and positivist. (By contrast, there is at least one person who hews to the line I have my prag- matist defending.) But I have gone to some  ...

Davidson attacks the intelligibility of conceptual relativism, i.e. of truth relative to a conceptual scheme. He defines the notion of a conceptual scheme as something ordering, organizing, and rendering intelligible empirical content, and calls the position that employs both notions scheme-content dualism. He argues that such dualism is untenable since: not only can we not parcel out empirical content sentence per sentence but also the notion of uninterpreted content to which several schemes are relative, and the related notion of a (...) theory ”fitting the evidence’, can be shown to lack intelligibility too. Davidson argues further that belief in incommensurable schemes or non-intertranslatable languages is possible only on violating a correct understanding of interpretability : if we succeed in interpreting someone else then we have shown there is no need to speak of two conceptual schemes, while if we fail ”there is no ground for speaking of two.’. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION The career of Benjamin Lee Whorf might, on the one hand, be described as that of a businessman of specialized talents— one of those individuals ...

Suppe, F. The search for philosophic understanding of scientific theories (p. [1]-241)--Proceedings of the symposium.--Bibliography, compiled by Rew A. Godow, Jr. (p. [615]-646).

Required reading at more than 100 colleges and universities throughout North America.

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

Through a study of a sophisticated contemporary scientific experiment, it is shown how and why use of the term 'observation' in reference to that experiment departs from ordinary and philosophical usages which associate observation epistemically with perception. The role of "background information" is examined, and general conclusions are arrived at regarding the use of descriptive language in and in talking about science. These conclusions bring out the reasoning by which science builds on what it has learned, and, further, how that (...) process of building consists not only in adding to our substantive knowledge, but also in increasing our ability to learn about nature, by extending our ability to observe it in new ways. The argument of this paper is thus a step toward understanding how it is that all our knowledge of nature rests on observation. (shrink)

I argue against the currently popular view that a radical change in theory affects the meaning of theoretical terms, and hence render pre- and post-shift theories incomparable. I first show how to pose the meaning-change issue without appeal to meanings reified. I contend that arguments against theory-neutral observation languages are faulty, but that even if they were sound, there are semantic devices that allow a theory to refer to the factual basis of a competitor. This suggests a picture of science (...) as the accumulation of truths, with each successive stage being more stable. (shrink)

The doctrine that the character of our perceptual knowledge is plastic, and can vary substantially with the theories embraced by the perceiver, has been criticized in a recent paper by Fodor. His arguments are based on certain experimental facts and theoretical approaches in cognitive psychology. My aim in this paper is threefold: to show that Fodor's views on the impenetrability of perceptual processing do not secure a theory-neutral foundation for knowledge; to show that his views on impenetrability are almost certainly (...) false; and to provide some additional arguments for, and illustrations of, the theoretical character of all observation judgments. (shrink)

Churchland's paper "Perceptual Plasticity and Theoretical Neutrality" offers empirical, semantical and epistemological arguments intended to show that the cognitive impenetrability of perception "does not establish a theory-neutral foundation for knowledge" and that the psychological account of perceptual encapsulation that I set forth in The Modularity of Mind "[is] almost certainly false". The present paper considers these arguments in detail and dismisses them.

Several arguments are considered which purport to demonstrate the impossibility of theory-neutral observation. The most important of these infers the continuity of observation with theory from the presumed continuity of perception with cognition, a doctrine widely espoused in recent cognitive psychology. An alternative psychological account of the relation between cognition and perception is proposed and its epistemological consequences for the observation/theory distinction are then explored.

A study in the philosophy of science, proposing a strong form of the doctrine of scientific realism' and developing its implications for issues in the philosophy of mind.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Described by the philosopher A.J. Ayer as a work of 'great originality and power', this book revolutionized contemporary thinking on science and knowledge. Ideas such as the now legendary doctrine of 'falsificationism' electrified the scientific community, influencing even working scientists, as well as post-war philosophy. This astonishing work ranks alongside _The Open Society and Its Enemies_ as one of Popper's most enduring books and contains insights and arguments that demand to be read to this day.

This book presents clear and understandable definitions of important philosophical terms. Emphasis is on the areas most commonly covered in introductory courses: epistemology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophies of religion and politics.

The debate over scientific or critical realism is characterized by confusion, which I claim is a result of approaching the issue from both modern and ‘postmodern’ perspectives. Modern thought is characterized by foundationalism in epistemology and representationalism in philosophy of language, while holism in epistemology and the theory of meaning as use in philosophy of language are postmodern. Typical forms of scientific realism (which seek referents for theoretical terms or correspondence accounts of the truth of scientific theories) are positions at (...) home only in a modern framework. Postmodern presuppositions of other participants in the debate account for the ability of opponents to talk past one another. (shrink)

It is argued that neither the "theory-informity" of observations nor the Quine-Duhem thesis pose any in principle threat to the objectivity of theory evaluation. The employment of exploratory theories does not generate incommensurability, but on the contrary is responsible for the mensurability and commensurability of explanatory theories, since exploratory theories enable scientists to make observations which are critical in the evaluation of explanatory theories. The employment of exploratory theories and other auxiliary hypotheses does not enable a theory to always accommodate (...) recalcitrant observations to preserve evidential equivalence with a rival theory. Explanatory theories become rapidly degenerating if exploratory theories or other auxiliary hypotheses which inform the original confirmation base are modified to accommodate recalcitrant observations. (shrink)

Scholars of every sort inevitably make stylistic choices, name and frame issues, appeal to communal values, adapt arguments to ends, audiences and circumstances. Yet the myth persists that `good' scholarship consists of hard fact and cold logic, devoid of all rhetoric; that the assent given to scholarly claims is somehow independent of the language used to communicate and defend them. Rhetoric in the Human Sciences demonstrates that the rhetorical dimensions of scholarly discourse can no longer be ignored. The authors illustrate (...) the usefulness of rhetorical theory, bringing its tools and perspectives to bear on such diverse subjects as language acquisition, television viewing, ethnographic writing, psychotherapy, jur. (shrink)

Based on author's dissertation--Yale University.

Empirical adequacy, formal explanation and understanding are distinct goals of science. While no a priori criterion for understanding should be laid down, there may be inherent limitations on the way we are able to understand explanations of physical phenomena. I examine several recent contributions to the exercise of fashioning an explanatory discourse to mold the formal explanation provided by quantum mechanics to our modes of understanding. The question is whether we are capable of truly understanding (or comprehending) quantum phenomena, as (...) opposed to simply accepting the formalism and certain irreducible quantum correlations. The central issue is that of understanding versus merely redefining terms to paper over our ignorance. (shrink)

" --Maurice A. Finocchiaro,Isis "The best and most original aspect of the book is its overall conception.

Following an account of the incommensurability argument, an objection, based on assumptions concerning rival theories, is examined and rejected. This rejection leads to an alternative direction of criticism of incommensurability, a direction that involves the articulation of comparative standards of theory evaluation that are independent of meaning invariance.

Paul Churchland has recently argued that empirical evidence strongly suggests that perception is penetrable to the beliefs or theories held by individual perceivers (1988). While there has been much discussion of the sorts of psychological cases he presents, little has been said about his arguments from neurology. I offer a critical examination of his claim that certain efferents in the brain are evidence against perceptual encapsulation. I argue that his neurological evidence is inadequate to his philosophical goals, both by itself (...) and taken in concert with his psychological evidence. (shrink)