Observation and Experiment in the Natural and Social Sciences

by Galavotti, Maria Carla

• ISBN13: 9781402012518
• ISBN10: 1402012519
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-07-01
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

Traditionally, philosophers of science have distinguished between a "context of justification" and a "context of discovery". Only the first was conceived as the proper field of application of philosophy of science, while the second was regarded as concerning scientists, not philosophers. Recently it was admitted that the context of justification forms a continuum with the context of discovery, and as a result observation and experimentation have become an important field of inquiry. The present volume is meant as a contribution to the ongoing debate on this topic. This volume is meant for researchers and advanced students in Philosophy of Science, and for natural and social scientists interested in foundational topics. It combines the viewpoint of philosophers and scientists and casts a new interdisciplinary perspective on the problem of observation and experimentation. It spans a wide range of disciplines, including physics, economics and psychology.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
Maria Carla Galavotti
From Theory to Experiment and Back Again	1	(42)
Patrick Suppes
Naive Probability	43	(14)
Paolo Legrenzi
From Theory to Experiments and Back Again ... and Back Again ... Comments on Patrick Suppes	57	(6)
Laszlo Szabo
Emergence and Future of Experimental Economics	63	(8)
Reinhard Selten
Rationality in Experimental Economics: An Analysis of Reinhard Selten's Approach	71	(14)
Wenceslao Gonzalez
Experiments, Heuristics and Social Diversity: A Comment on Reinhard Selten	85	(14)
Roberto Scazzieri
Where Do New Ideas Come From? A Heuristics of Discovery in the Cognitive Sciences	99	(42)
Gerd Gigerenzer
Comments on Gerd Gigerenzer	141	(12)
David Papineau
On the Concept of Discovery. Comments on Gerd Gigerenzer	153	(6)
Jeanne Peijnenburg
Styles of Experimentation	159	(28)
Ursula Klein
On French Concepts and Objects. Comments on Ursula Klein	187	(12)
Aristides Baltas
Some Comments on ``Styles of Experimentation'' by Ursula Klein	199	(4)
Donald Gillies
Improving ``Styles of Experimentation''. A Comment on Ursula Klein	203	(6)
Gurol Irzik
Experiments and Thought Experiments in Natural Science	209	(18)
David Atkinson
The Advantage of Theft over Honest Toil. Comments on David Atkinson	227	(10)
Daniel Andler
Thinking About Thought Experiments in Physics. Comment on ``Experiments and Thought Experiments in Natural Science''	237	(6)
Miklos Redei
The Dynamics of Thought Experiments. A Comment on David Atkinson	243	(16)
Michael Stoltzner
An Attempt at a Philosophy of Experiment	259	(26)
Giora Hon
An Attempt at a Philosophy of Experimental Error. A Comment on Giora Hon	285	(10)
Raffaella Campaner
O Happy Error. A Comment on Giora Hon	295	(6)
Gereon Wolters
Bayesian Evidence	301	(20)
Colin Howson
On Bayesian Logic. Comments on Colin Howson	321	(6)
Igor Douven
On Bayesian Induction (and Pythagoric Arithmetic)	327	(6)
Paolo Garbolino
Probability and Logic. Comments on Colin Howson	333	(6)
Ilkka Niiniluoto
Index of Names	339