Structures in Science

by Kuipers, Theo A. F.

• ISBN13: 9780792371175
• ISBN10: 0792371178
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

The philosophy of science has lost its self-confidence, witness the lack of advanced textbooks in contrast to the abundance of elementary textbooks. Structures in Science is an advanced textbook that explicates, updates, accommodates, and integrates the best insights of logical-empiricism and its main critics. This 'neo-classical approach' aims at providing heuristic patterns for research. The book introduces four ideal types of research programs (descriptive, explanatory, design, and explicative) and reanimates the distinction between observational laws and proper theories. It explicates various patterns of explanation by subsumption and specification as well as structures in reductive and other types of interlevel research. Its analysis of theory evaluation leads to new characterizations of confirmation, empirical progress, and pseudoscience. Partial analogies between progress in nomological research (i.e. observational, referential, and theoretical truth approximation, presented in detail in From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism , 2000) and progress in explicative and design research emerge. Finally, special chapters are devoted to design research programs, computational philosophy of science, the structuralist approach to theories, and research ethics.

Author Biography

Professor Theo Kuipers is the author of From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism (Synthese Library 287, 2000). He is the leader of the Groningen Research Group `Cognitive Structures in Knowledge and Knowledge Development', which gained the highest possible scores in two successive assessments of Dutch philosophical research by international committees.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
PART I UNITS OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION
Introduction	3	(2)
Research Programs and Research Strategies	5	(32)
Research programs	5	(18)
Research strategies	23	(14)
Observational Laws and Proper Theories	37	(38)
Examples and prima facie characteristics	40	(4)
Theory-relative explications	44	(8)
Theory-ladenness of observation	52	(4)
The structure of proper theories and the main epistemological positions	56	(17)
Appendix 1: The ideal gas law	64	(3)
Appendix 2: The empirical basis	67	(6)
PART II PATTERNS OF EXPLANATION AND DESCRIPTION
Introduction	73	(2)
Explanation and Reduction of Laws	75	(22)
Examples of explanations of observational laws	77	(9)
A decomposition model for the explanation of laws	86	(3)
Reduction of laws by theories	89	(8)
Explanation and Description By Specification	97	(38)
Intentional explanation of actions, goals and choices	98	(15)
Functional explanation of biological traits	113	(10)
Specific causal explanations	123	(3)
Extrapolations and speculations	126	(7)
PART III STRUCTURES IN INTERLEVEL AND INTERFIELD RESEARCH
Introduction	133	(2)
Reduction and Correlation of Concepts	135	(24)
Type-type identities and correlations	135	(3)
Analysis of reduction and correlation of concepts	138	(15)
The relation between concept and law reduction, multiple concept reduction, and (non-) reductionistic strategies	153	(6)
Levels, Styles, and Mind-Body Research	159	(42)
Interlevel and interfield research	159	(8)
Explication of the relations between the styles	167	(8)
Biophysical mind-body interlevel research	175	(8)
Interlevel and interstyle mind-body research	183	(11)
Lateral interfield research	194	(5)
PART IV CONFIRMATION AND EMPIRICAL PROGRESS
Introduction	199	(2)
Testing and Further Separative Evaluation of Theories	201	(28)
Falsification and confirmation by the HD-method	203	(10)
Separate HD-evaluation of a theory	213	(8)
Falsifying general hypotheses, statistical test implications, and complicating factors	221	(8)
Empirical Progress and Pseudoscience	229	(26)
Comparative HD-evaluation of theories	229	(9)
Evaluation and falsification in the light of truth approximation	238	(5)
Scientific and pseudoscientific dogmatism	243	(10)
PART V TRUTH, PRODUCT, AND CONCEPT APPROXIMATION
Introduction	253	(2)
Progress in Nomological, Explicative and Design	255	(10)
Formal progress in nomological research	256	(4)
Empirical progress and nomological research programs	260	(2)
Progress in design and explicative research	262	(3)
Design Research Programs	265	(24)
The lattice model	266	(2)
The naive model of problem states and transitions	268	(5)
Structural versus functional properties	273	(3)
Potential applications and realizations	276	(4)
Potentially relevant properties	280	(1)
Resemblance and differences with truth approximation	281	(6)
PART VI CAPITA SELECTA
Introduction	287	(2)
Computational Philosophy of Science	289	(28)
Impressions about programs	290	(14)
Computational theory selection and the evaluation matrix	304	(13)
The Structuralist Approach to Theories	317	(26)
Why the structuralist approach?	318	(2)
The epistemologically unstratified approach to theories	320	(4)
The stratified approach to theories	324	(9)
Refinements	333	(10)
`Default-Norms' In Research Ethics	343	(14)
Merton's norms conceived as `default-norms'	344	(4)
Disinterestedness, and its challenges	348	(9)
Suggestions For Further Reading	357	(4)
Exercises	361	(8)
Notes	369	(10)
References	379	(10)
Index of Names	389	(4)
Index of Subjects	393