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)

This paper examines the "causal theory of reference", according to which science aims at the discovery of "essences" which are the objects of reference of natural kind terms (among others). This theory has been advanced as an alternative to traditional views of "meaning", on which a number of philosophical accounts of science have relied, and which have been criticized earlier by the present author. However, this newer theory of reference is shown to be equally subject to fatal internal difficulties, and (...) to be incompatible with actual science as well. Indeed, it rests on assumptions which it shares with the purportedly opposing theory of meaning. Behind those common assumptions is the supposition that the nature of science can be illuminated by an examination of alleged necessities of language which are independent of the results and methods of scientific inquiry. An alternative view of science is proposed, according to which the goals and language of science develop as integral parts of the process of demarcating science from non-science, a process in which the notion of a "reason" gradually assumes a decisive role. On this view, the comparability, competition, and development of scientific ideas are understood without reliance on either common "meanings" or common "references" as fundamental tools of analysis. (shrink)

The chief objections raised by Doppelt (this issue, "The Philosophical Requirements for an Adequate Conception of Scientific Rationality") against my views fall into three groups: ones having to do with my concept of "success" (that I have provided no analysis of it, and that therefore my concept of "reason" in science is likewise unexplained; that it requires appeal to some universal criterion); ones having to do with the role of standards or criteria in science (how they are related to substantive (...) beliefs; the possibility of rejecting them); and ones purporting to show that I have not escaped relativism (underdetermination of beliefs; problem of loss in scientific change). I reply to each of these groups of criticisms in turn, concluding with some remarks on the status and validity of the requirements he lays down for any account of scientific rationality. (shrink)

The alleged problem of "incommensurability" is examined, and attempts to explain scientific change in terms of concepts of meaning and reference are analyzed and rejected. A way of understanding scientific change through a properly developed concept of "reasons" is presented, and the issues of reasons, meaning, and reference are placed in the context of this broader interpretation of scientific change.

In recent years, philosophers of science have been increasingly concerned with questions about scientific change, and, in connection with those concerns, to rest their claims more and more on an examination of cases in the history of science. During the 1960s and early 1970s, those concerns tended to revolve around the question of whether scientific change, or at least major scientific change, is or is not “rational.” It seems to me, as I shall argue in what follows, that that question (...) is misguided in principle, at least as it is usually understood, and that it calls attention away from the most important and potentially most fruitful problems about the nature of scientific change. Furthermore, I believe, and will argue below, that the most fundamental reasons for investigating scientific change, and the sense in which and degree to which it is necessary to base such investigation on an examination of the history of science have not been adequately grasped even by many who are sympathetic to the approach. Finally, I do not believe that the difficulties in the way of such an approach have been properly appreciated and taken account of, and in many cases have not been considered at all. In particular, I will examine here five basic objections or types of objections against the view that the philosopher of science, in attempting to understand the nature of science, must examine the rationale of scientific development and innovation, and must base that examination on a study of cases from the history of science. (shrink)

This paper defends the Causal Theory of Reference against the recent criticism that it imposes a priori constraints on the aims and practices of science. The metaphysical essentialism of this theory is shown to be compatible with the requirements of naturalistic epistemology. The theory is nevertheless unable to forestall the problem of incommensurability for scientific terms, because it misrepresents the conditions under which their reference is fixed. The resources of the Causal Theory of Reference and of the traditional cluster or (...) "network" theory of meaning for handling problems of commensurability are compared, and an alternative approach is recommended. (shrink)