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  1. Keeping quiet on the ontology of models.Steven French - 2010 - Synthese 172 (2):231-249.
    Stein once urged us not to confuse the means of representation with that which is being represented. Yet that is precisely what philosophers of science appear to have done at the meta-level when it comes to representing the practice of science. Proponents of the so-called ‘syntactic’ view identify theories as logically closed sets of sentences or propositions and models as idealised interpretations, or ‘theoruncula, as Braithwaite called them. Adherents of the ‘semantic’ approach, on the other hand, are typically characterised as (...)
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  • (1 other version)The Structure and Dynamics of Scientific Theories: A Hierarchical Bayesian Perspective.Leah Henderson, Noah D. Goodman, Joshua B. Tenenbaum & James F. Woodward - 2010 - Philosophy of Science 77 (2):172-200.
    Hierarchical Bayesian models (HBMs) provide an account of Bayesian inference in a hierarchically structured hypothesis space. Scientific theories are plausibly regarded as organized into hierarchies in many cases, with higher levels sometimes called ‘paradigms’ and lower levels encoding more specific or concrete hypotheses. Therefore, HBMs provide a useful model for scientific theory change, showing how higher‐level theory change may be driven by the impact of evidence on lower levels. HBMs capture features described in the Kuhnian tradition, particularly the idea that (...)
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  • (6 other versions)The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas Samuel Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Otto Neurath.
    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 (...)
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  • Progress and its Problems: Toward a Theory of Scientific Growth.Larry Laudan - 1977 - University of California Press.
    (This insularity was further promoted by the guileless duplicity of scholars in other fields, who were all too prepared to bequeath "the problem of ...
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  • A Primer on Determinism.John Earman - 1986 - D. Reidel.
    Determinism is a perennial topic of philosophical discussion. Very little acquaintance with the philosophical literature is needed to reveal the Tower of ...
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  • Doing without concepts.Edouard Machery - 2009 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Over recent years, the psychology of concepts has been rejuvenated by new work on prototypes, inventive ideas on causal cognition, the development of neo-empiricist theories of concepts, and the inputs of the budding neuropsychology of concepts. But our empirical knowledge about concepts has yet to be organized in a coherent framework. -/- In Doing without Concepts, Edouard Machery argues that the dominant psychological theories of concepts fail to provide such a framework and that drastic conceptual changes are required to make (...)
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  • Inconsistency, asymmetry, and non-locality: a philosophical investigation of classical electrodynamics.Mathias Frisch - 2005 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Mathias Frisch provides the first sustained philosophical discussion of conceptual problems in classical particle-field theories. Part of the book focuses on the problem of a satisfactory equation of motion for charged particles interacting with electromagnetic fields. As Frisch shows, the standard equation of motion results in a mathematically inconsistent theory, yet there is no fully consistent and conceptually unproblematic alternative theory. Frisch describes in detail how the search for a fundamental equation of motion is partly driven by pragmatic considerations (like (...)
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  • (6 other versions)The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas S. Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Ian Hacking.
    Thomas S. Kuhn's classic book is now available with a new index.
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  • Frisch, Muller, and Belot on an inconsistency in classical electrodynamics.Peter Vickers - 2008 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 59 (4):767-792.
    This paper follows up a debate as to whether classical electrodynamics is inconsistent. Mathias Frisch makes the claim in Inconsistency, Asymmetry and Non-Locality ([2005]), but this has been quickly countered by F. A. Muller ([2007]) and Gordon Belot ([2007]). Here I argue that both Muller and Belot fail to connect with the background assumptions that support Frisch's claim. Responding to Belot I explicate Frisch's position in more detail, before providing my own criticisms. Correcting Frisch's position, I find that I can (...)
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  • The Dome: An Unexpectedly Simple Failure of Determinism.John D. Norton - 2008 - Philosophy of Science 75 (5):786-798.
    Newton’s equations of motion tell us that a mass at rest at the apex of a dome with the shape specified here can spontaneously move. It has been suggested that this indeterminism should be discounted since it draws on an incomplete rendering of Newtonian physics, or it is “unphysical,” or it employs illicit idealizations. I analyze and reject each of these reasons. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA (...)
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  • Interfield theories.Lindley Darden & Nancy Maull - 1977 - Philosophy of Science 44 (1):43-64.
    This paper analyzes the generation and function of hitherto ignored or misrepresented interfield theories , theories which bridge two fields of science. Interfield theories are likely to be generated when two fields share an interest in explaining different aspects of the same phenomenon and when background knowledge already exists relating the two fields. The interfield theory functions to provide a solution to a characteristic type of theoretical problem: how are the relations between fields to be explained? In solving this problem (...)
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  • Wandering Significance: An Essay on Conceptual Behavior.Mark Wilson - 2006 - Oxford, GB: Oxford: Clarendon Press.
    Mark Wilson presents a highly original and broad-ranging investigation of the way we get to grips with the world conceptually, and the way that philosophical problems commonly arise from this. He combines traditional philosophical concerns about human conceptual thinking with illuminating data derived from a large variety of fields including physics and applied mathematics, cognitive psychology, and linguistics. Wandering Significance offers abundant new insights and perspectives for philosophers of language, mind, and science, and will also reward the interest of psychologists, (...)
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  • A Neurocomputational Perspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure of Science.Paul M. Churchland - 1989 - MIT Press.
    A Neurocomputationial Perspective illustrates the fertility of the concepts and data drawn from the study of the brain and of artificial networks that model the...
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  • (4 other versions)Human Understanding.Stephen Toulmin - 1975 - Mind 84 (334):299-304.
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  • Inconsistency and scientific reasoning.Joel M. Smith - 1988 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 19 (4):429-445.
    This is a philosophical and historical investigation of the role of inconsistent representations of the same scientific phenomenon. The logical difficulties associated with the simultaneous application of inconsistent models are discussed. Internally inconsistent scientific proposals are characterized as structures whose application is necessarily tied to the confirming evidence that each of its components enjoys and to a vision of the general form of the theory that will resolve the inconsistency. Einstein's derivation of the black body radiation law is used as (...)
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  • Reflections on the revolution at Stanford.F. A. Muller - 2011 - Synthese 183 (1):87--114.
    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 (...)
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  • Foundations of Biophilosophy.Martin Mahner & Mario Bunge - 2013 - Springer Verlag.
    Over the past three decades, the philosophy of biology has emerged from the shadow of the philosophy of physics to become a respectable and thriving philosophical subdiscipline. The authors take a fresh look at the life sciences and the philosophy of biology from a strictly realist and emergentist-naturalist perspective. They outline a unified and science-oriented philosophical framework that enables the clarification of many foundational and philosophical issues in biology. This book will be of interest both to life scientists and philosophers.
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  • Is classical mechanics really time-reversible and deterministic?Keith Hutchison - 1993 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (2):307-323.
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  • Is classical electrodynamics an inconsistent theory?Gordon Belot - 2007 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (2):263-282.
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 37: 263–282. [preprint] This paper is a critical discussion of Mathias Frisch’s book Inconsistency, Asymmetry, and Nonlocality.
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  • (4 other versions)Human Understanding.S. Toulmin - 1973 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 24 (1):41-61.
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  • A Neurocomputational Perspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure of Science.Lynne Rudder Baker & Paul M. Churchland - 1992 - Philosophical Review 101 (4):906.
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  • Bohr's theory of the atom 1913–1923: A case study in the progress of scientific research programmes.Hinne Hettema - 1995 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 26 (3):307-323.
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  • Theories between theories: Asymptotic limiting intertheoretic relations.Robert W. Batterman - 1995 - Synthese 103 (2):171 - 201.
    This paper addresses a relatively common scientific (as opposed to philosophical) conception of intertheoretic reduction between physical theories. This is the sense of reduction in which one (typically newer and more refined) theory is said to reduce to another (typically older and coarser) theory in the limit as some small parameter tends to zero. Three examples of such reductions are discussed: First, the reduction of Special Relativity (SR) to Newtonian Mechanics (NM) as (v/c)20; second, the reduction of wave optics to (...)
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  • (1 other version)How to do things with theories: an interactive view of language and models in science.Robin F. Hendry & Stathis Psillos - 2007 - In Jerzy Brzezinski, Andrzej Klawiter, Theo A. F. Kuipers, Krzysztof Lastowski, Katarzyna Paprzycka & Piotr Przybysz (eds.), The Courage of Doing Philosophy: Essays Dedicated to Leszek Nowak. Rodopi. pp. 123--157.
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  • Contents.[author unknown] - 1966 - Apeiron 1 (1):I-I.
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  • Is Science Progressive?I. Niiniluoto - 1984 - Reidel.
    This collection brings together several essays which have been written between the years 197 5 and 1983. During that period I have been occupied with the attempt to find a satisfactory explicate for the notion of tnithlike ness or verisimilitude. The technical results of this search have partly appeared elsewhere, and I am also working on a systematic presentation of them in a companion volume to this book: Truthlikeness. The essays collected in this book are less formal and more philos (...)
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  • Structures of Scientific Theories.Carl F. Craver - 2002 - In Peter K. Machamer & Michael Silberstein (eds.), The Blackwell guide to the philosophy of science. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell. pp. 55–79.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Once Received View (ORV) Criticisms of the ORV The “Model Model” of Scientific Theories Mechanisms: Investigating Nonformal Patterns in Scientific Theories Conclusion.
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  • Falsificationism and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programs' in I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave.Imre Lakatos - 1970 - In Imre Lakatos & Alan Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the growth of knowledge. Cambridge [Eng.]: Cambridge University Press.
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  • Established theories.Fritz Rohrlich & Larry Hardin - 1983 - Philosophy of Science 50 (4):603-617.
    Criteria are given to characterize mature theories in contradistinction to developing theories. We lean heavily on the physical sciences. An established theory is defined as a mature one with known validity limits. The approximate truth of such theories is thereby given a quantitative character. Superseding theories do not falsify established theories because the latter are protected by their validity limits. This view of scientific realism leads to ontological levels and cumulativity of knowledge. It is applied to a defense of realism (...)
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  • Inconsistency in classical electrodynamics?F. A. Muller - 2007 - Philosophy of Science 74 (2):253-277.
    In a recent issue of this journal, M. Frisch claims to have proven that classical electrodynamics is an inconsistent physical theory. We argue that he has applied classical electrodynamics inconsistently. Frisch also claims that all other classical theories of electromagnetic phenomena, when consistent and in some sense an approximation of classical electrodynamics, are haunted by “serious conceptual problems” that defy resolution. We argue that this claim is based on a partisan if not misleading presentation of theoretical research in classical electrodynamics.
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  • The structure of theories.Steven French - 2005 - In Martin Curd & Stathis Psillos (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science. New York: Routledge. pp. 269--280.
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  • Heisenberg Meets Kuhn: Closed Theories and Paradigms.Alisa Bokulich - 2006 - Philosophy of Science 73 (1):90-107.
    The aim of this paper is to examine in detail the similarities and dissimilarities between Werner Heisenberg’s account of closed theories and Thomas Kuhn’s model of scientific revolutions. My analysis draws on a little‐known discussion that took place between Heisenberg and Kuhn in 1963, in which Heisenberg, having just read Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, compares Kuhn’s views to his own account of closed theories. I conclude that while Heisenberg and Kuhn share a holist conception of theories, a revolutionary model (...)
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  • Where have all the theories gone?Margaret Morrison - 2007 - Philosophy of Science 74 (2):195-228.
    Although the recent emphasis on models in philosophy of science has been an important development, the consequence has been a shift away from more traditional notions of theory. Because the semantic view defines theories as families of models and because much of the literature on “scientific” modeling has emphasized various degrees of independence from theory, little attention has been paid to the role that theory has in articulating scientific knowledge. This paper is the beginning of what I hope will be (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Is Science Progressive?Jarrett Leplin - 1985 - Philosophy of Science 52 (4):646-648.
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  • Determinism and the mystery of the missing physics.Mark Wilson - 2009 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60 (1):173-193.
    This article surveys the difficulties in establishing determinism for classical physics within the context of several distinct foundational approaches to the discipline. It explains that such problems commonly emerge due to a deeper problem of ‘missing physics'. The Problems of Formalism Norton's Example Three Species of Classical Mechanics 3.1 Mass point physics 3.2 The physics of perfect constraints 3.3 Continuum mechanics Conclusion CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?
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  • The modular structure of physical theories.Olivier Darrigol - 2008 - Synthese 162 (2):195 - 223.
    Any advanced theory of physics contains modules defined as essential components that are themselves theories with different domains of application. Different kinds of modules can be distinguished according to the way in which they fit in the symbolic and interpretive apparatus of a theory. The number and kind of the modules of a given theory vary as the theory evolves in time. The relative stability of modules and the variability of their insertion in other theories play a vital role in (...)
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  • Contents.[author unknown] - 1992 - Journal of Intelligent Systems 2 (1-4):I-I.
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  • (1 other version)Causal fundamentalism in physics.Henrik Zinkernagel - 2009 - In Mauricio Suárez, Mauro Dorato & Miklós Rédei (eds.), EPSA Philosophical Issues in the Sciences: Launch of the European Philosophy of Science Association. Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer. pp. 311--322.
    Norton has recently argued that causation is merely a useful folk concept and that it fails to hold for some simple systems even in the supposed paradigm case of a causal physical theory – namely Newtonian mechanics. The purpose of this article is to argue against this devaluation of causality in physics. My main argument is that Norton’s alleged counterexample to causality within standard Newtonian physics fails to obey what I shall call the causal core of Newtonian mechanics. In particular, (...)
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  • The semantic conception of theories and scientific realism.W. Diederich - 1994 - Erkenntnis 41 (3):421-426.
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  • Kann es rational sein, eine inkonsistente Theorie zu akzeptieren?(Eine Untersuchung zum frühen Bohrschen Atommodell).Thomas Bartelborth - 1989 - Philosophia Naturalis 26 (1):91-120.
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  • (1 other version)Causal fundamentalism in physics.Henrik Zinkernagel - unknown
    Norton (2003 and 2006) has recently argued that causation is merely a useful folk concept and that it fails to hold for some simple systems even in the supposed paradigm case of a causal physical theory – namely Newtonian mechanics. The purpose of this article is to argue against this devaluation of causality in physics. My main argument is that Norton’s alleged counterexample to causality (and determinism) within standard Newtonian physics fails to obey what I shall call the causal core (...)
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  • Old Quantum Theory: A Paraconsistent Approach.Bryson Brown - 1992 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992:397 - 411.
    Just what forms do (or should) our cognitive attitudes towards scientific theories take? The nature of cognitive commitment becomes particularly puzzling when scientists' commitments are) inconsistent. And inconsistencies have often infected our best efforts in science and mathematics. Since there are no models of inconsistent sets of sentences, straightforward semantic accounts fail. And syntactic accounts based on classical logic also collapse, since the closure of any inconsistent set under classical logic includes every sentence. In this essay I present some evidence (...)
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