Showing papers in "Philosophy of Science in 1977"
TL;DR: The Essential Tension as discussed by the authors is a collection of previously published essays by Thomas Kuhn to which the author has added two hitherto unpublished articles and a splendid, partly autobiographical preface.
Abstract: "The Essential Tension" is a collection of previously published essays by Thomas Kuhn to which the author has added two hitherto unpublished articles and a splendid, partly autobiographical preface. These assembled studies shed much light on the early evolution and subsequent reformulations of Kuhn's provocative "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (1962; revised edition 1970). Read as a group, they reveal a profound and subtle mind struggling to articulate and to resolve tensions between different modes of knowing and experiencing
1,666 citations
TL;DR: This paper argues that the medical conception of health as absence of disease is a value-free theoretical notion, its main elements are biological function and statistical normality, in contrast to various other ideas prominent in the literature on health.
Abstract: This paper argues that the medical conception of health as absence of disease is a value-free theoretical notion. Its main elements are biological function and statistical normality, in contrast to various other ideas prominent in the literature on health. Apart from universal environmental injuries, diseases are internal states that depress a functional ability below species-typical levels. Health as freedom from disease is then statistical normality of function, i.e., the ability to perform all typical physiological functions with at least typical efficiency. This conception of health is as value-free as statements of biological function. The view that health is essentially value-laden, held by most writers on the topic, seems to have one of two sources: an assumption that health judgments must be practical judgments about the treatment of patients, or a commitment to "positive" health beyond the absence of disease. I suggest that the assumption is mistaken, the commitment possibly misdescribed.
1,187 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, an alternative view is advanced in which laws are expressed by singular statements of fact describing the relationship between universal properties and magnitudes, and this view is examined in detail and rejected.
Abstract: It is a traditional empiricist doctrine that natural laws are universal truths. In order to overcome the obvious difficulties with this equation most empiricists qualify it by proposing to equate laws with universal truths that play a certain role, or have a certain function, within the larger scientific enterprise. This view is examined in detail and rejected; it fails to account for a variety of features that laws are acknowledged to have. An alternative view is advanced in which laws are expressed by singular statements of fact describing the relationship between universal properties and magnitudes.
660 citations
TL;DR: The purpose of this paper is to set forth a sense in which programs can and do explain behavior, and to distinguish from this a number of senses in which they do not.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to set forth a sense in which programs can and do explain behavior, and to distinguish from this a number of senses in which they do not. Once we are tolerably clear concerning the sort of explanatory strategy being employed, two rather interesting facts emerge; (1) though it is true that programs are "internally represented," this fact has no explanatory interest beyond the mere fact that the program is executed; (2) programs which are couched in information processing terms may have an explanatory interest for a given range of behavior which is independent of physiological explanations of the same range of behavior.
103 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that theories develop and change structure with time, that (like biological species) they are historical entities, and that both the identification and the evaluation of theories are essentially historical in character.
Abstract: History of science, it has been argued, has benefited philosophers of science primarily by forcing them into greater contact with "real science." In this paper I argue that additional major benefits arise from the importance of specifically historical considerations within philosophy of science. Loci for specifically historical investigations include: (1) making and evaluating rational reconstructions of particular theories and explanations, (2) estimating the degree of support earned by particular theories and theoretical claims, and (3) evaluating proposed philosophical norms for the evaluation of the degree of support for theories and the worth of explanations. More generally, I argue that theories develop and change structure with time, that (like biological species) they are historical entities. Accordingly, both the identification and the evaluation of theories are essentially historical in character.
80 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that the causal relation is not definable in terms of the condition relation, but in general for conditions of an occurrence to be among its causes they must answer instrumental interests in a certain way, and there are further criteria for distinguishing 'the' cause of a disease (i.e., its etiological agent) from other causal factors, which are based upon instrumental interests peculiar to medicine.
Abstract: This paper examines the way in which causal relations are understood in the dominant model in contemporary medicine. It argues that the causal relation is not definable in terms of the condition relation, but that in general for conditions of an occurrence to be among its causes they must answer instrumental interests in a certain way, and there are further criteria for distinguishing 'the' cause of a disease (i.e., its etiological agent) from other causal factors, which are based upon instrumental interests peculiar to medicine. It also argues that diseases are complex processes of which both clinical and underlying patho-physiological manifestations are proper parts (as contrasted with effects).
72 citations
TL;DR: It is suggested that Popper's desire to see scientific theory growth as being in some sense evolutionary may have led him astray about biology and since his claims about biology are not well taken his analysis of theory growth may well bear reexamination.
Abstract: In recent years Sir Karl Popper has been turning his attention more and more towards philosophical problems arising from biology, particularly evolutionary biology. Popper suggests that perhaps neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory is better categorized as a metaphysical research program than as a scientific theory. In this paper it is argued that Popper can draw his conclusions only because he is abysmally ignorant of the current status of biological thought and that Popper's criticisms of biology are without force and his suggestions for its improvement are without need. Also it is suggested that Popper's desire to see scientific theory growth as being in some sense evolutionary may have led him astray about biology. And conversely it is suggested that since his claims about biology are not well taken his analysis of theory growth may well bear reexamination.
66 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an analysis of the concept of causal propagation on the basis of the ability of causal processes to transmit "marks" is presented, based on the "at-at" theory of motion which has figured prominently in the resolution of the arrow paradox.
Abstract: The propagation of causal influences through space-time seems to play a fundamental role in scientific explanation. Taking as a point of departure a basic distinction between causal interactions (which are localized in space-time) and causal processes (which may extend through vast regions of space-time), this paper attempts an analysis of the concept of causal propagation on the basis of the ability of causal processes to transmit "marks." The analysis rests upon the "at-at" theory of motion which has figured prominently in the resolution of Zeno's arrow paradox. It is argued that this explication does justice to the concept of the ability of causal processes to transmit causal influence without invoking anti-Humean "powers" or "necessary connections."
44 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that a new paradigm seems needed in high energy physics, and that there is no more reason to say that matter is made of elementary particles, than to say it is not.
Abstract: Since the appearance of T. S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, scholars from various fields have sought to evaluate their disciplines in the light of Kuhnian criteria for scientific change. In this paper I argue that a new paradigm seems needed in high energy physics, and that there is no more reason to say that matter is made of elementary particles, than to say that it is not. My argument, that high energy physics is approaching a state of crisis, and that a new paradigm is needed, is based on an examination of two events which, according to Kuhn, presage a conceptual revolution: (1) the "old" paradigm of normal science becomes unclear; and (2) this paradigm fails to support normal problem solving research, and scientists begin to use it as if it were merely definitional. After examining the elementary particles paradigm in the light of these two criteria, I conclude that high energy physics is moving from "normal science" to "extraordinary science." I argue neither that a new paradigm ha...
34 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors develop a nontrivial interpretation of Feyerabend's concept of hidden anomalous fact. But this interpretation is restricted to the case of Brownian motion.
Abstract: In this paper, I will develop a nontrivial interpretation of Feyerabend's concept of a hidden anomalous fact. Feyerabend's claim is that some anomalous facts will remain hidden in the absence of alternatives to the theories to be tested. The case of Brownian motion is given by Feyerabend to support this claim. The essential scientific difficulty in this case was the justification of correct and relevant descriptions of Brownian motion. These descriptions could not be simply determined from the available observational data. An examination, however, of this case shows that no alternative theory is or historically was thought to be necessary in order to justify descriptions of Brownian motion that "directly" refutre thermodynamics. While Feyerabend's appraisal of this case therefore is incorrect, a sense is developed in which successful alternatives lend inductive support to the correctness of refuting experimental descriptions. Crucial though to the explanation of this support is the notion of arguments tha...
29 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the actually observed wastefulness and meandering indirection are intrinsic to expansion of knowledge and oppose the notion of direct, unwasteful, prescient problem solving in which a properly gifted or tutored scientist goes directly to the new more appropriate conceptualization.
Abstract: The quotations which Richards ([11]) provides do seem too implausible to motivate readers to go to the fuller expositions (particularly in [1], [2], and [4]) from which they are excerpted. To make them seem at all reasonable requires some attention to the problem context in which they participate. There is a cluster of implicit and explicit beliefs about scientific discovery and conceptual innovation which are opposed by the scattered but recurrent school of heretics I try to represent. (In the area of conceptual discovery and originality in science and mathematics this school includes Bain, Jevons, James, Souriau, Poincare, Mach, Boltzmann, Popper, Polya, Toulmin, and Feyerabend, to varying degrees. See [2] for references.) We oppose the notion of direct, unwasteful, prescient problem solving in which a properly gifted or tutored scientist goes directly to the new more appropriate conceptualization. To us, this smacks of clairvoyance, teleological causation, and pseudo-explanation. Instead, we argue that the actually observed wastefulness and meandering indirection are intrinsic to expansion of knowledge. While there may often be presumptive procedures that turn out to be appropriate and thereby reduce the waste, it can never be entirely eliminated. At any given stage of science, there are many competing conceptual formulations, most of which turn out to be intelligent errors. We reject the notion that a proper logic or rationality of discovery could have avoided this waste and have led directly to the new advance. Along with this we may reject (as I do) the belief that the one formulation that historically proved to be more correct was necessarily most intelligent or rational in its generation, most loyally following some recipe for intelligent or rational discovery. We emphasize that the correct solutions were often suggested for wrong reasons. We regard the motives, reasons, and specific psychological history of a new concep-
TL;DR: Most early evolutionary anthropologists, however, employed concepts of direct adaptiveness and inheritance of behavior intelligently acquired, rather than those of natural selection, in their explanations of cultural progress.
Abstract: Evolutionary notions were regarded by many early social scientists as particularly fit to explain cultural developments. John Lubbock, Walter Bagehot, Lewis Henry Morgan, Edward Tylor, Herbert Spencer, and a host of others applied evolutionary ideas to social institutions in an effort to give account of the descent from primitive thought.' Most early evolutionary anthropologists, however, employed concepts of direct adaptiveness and inheritance of behavior intelligently acquired, rather than those of natural selection, in their explanations of cultural progress. More recently attention has turned to the use of the natural selection model for analysis of cultural transformations, albeit of a rather specialized sort-the processes of scientific thinking. Prominent among those adapting the model for this epistemological pursuit are Stephen Toulmin ([12]) and Karl Popper ([10]). Popper, for instance, argues that the preference for one theory over another
TL;DR: The authors argue against the founding of a general theory of scientific explanation upon the techniques of developing visualizable models as simulacra of the unknown and as yet unexplored generative mechanisms responsible for the patterns of experience.
Abstract: Professor MacKinnon's interesting discussion [13] of some recent theories of mine involves two distinct arguments. In the one he argues against the founding of a general theory of scientific explanation upon the techniques of developing visualizable models as simulacra of the unknown and as yet unexplored generative mechanisms responsible for the patterns of experience, and in the other against the founding of a theory of social psychology upon the idea of the person as agent. The former criticism, though it involves a genuine advance in the theory of science, also involves a rather fundamental misunderstanding of the structure of my argument. It was my intention in my Principles of Scientific Thinking ([6]; also see [10], p. 75) to show that despite the apparent ubiquity of iconic models in the technical
TL;DR: The authors argued that science is not morally autonomous, and that the attendant notion of rationality in science decision-making is inadequate, and proposed a more comprehensive notion of scientific rationality as a replacement.
Abstract: The few extant arguments concerning the autonomy of science in the rational acceptance of hypotheses are examined. It is concluded that science is not morally autonomous, and that the attendant notion of rationality in science decisionmaking is inadequate. A more comprehensive notion of scientific rationality, which encompasses the old one, is proposed as a replacement. The general idea is that scientists qua scientist ought, in their acceptance decisions, to take into account the ethical consequences of acceptance as well as the consequences with regard to the attainment of "purely scientific" or "epistemic" objectives. The result constitutes an argument for a (presumably cooperative) game theoretic treatment of inductive logic.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors apply Skolimowski's analysis of epistemic possibility to the current sociotechnical enterprise known as technology assessment (TA) and examine the two foci of TA activities, impact analysis and policy analysis, in different logical and methodological forms.
Abstract: The current sociotechnical enterprise known as technology assessment (TA) is examined. Applying Skolimowski's analysis of epistemic possibility, the two foci of TA activities, impact analysis and policy analysis are shown to involve different logical and methodological forms. Impact analysis is shown to follow the logic of applied science while policy analysis involves the logic of technological design. Methodological implications of this distinction are isolated. Areas requiring conceptual clarification internal to TA practice are identified and limitations of the overall approach are articulated.
TL;DR: A model of causation is presented which shares the advantages of Reichenbach's definition in terms of the screening-off relation, but which has the added advantage of distinguishing cause and effect without reference to temporal directionality.
Abstract: A model of causation is presented which shares the advantages of Reichenbach's definition in terms of the screening-off relation, but which has the added advantage of distinguishing cause and effect without reference to temporal directionality. This model is defined in terms of the masking relation, which in turn is defined in terms of the equivocation relation of communication theory.
TL;DR: It is shown that C-fiber activity is a poor candidate for identification with feeling pain, because not all these small diameter, slow firing, unmyelinated afferent fibers conduct impulses related to having pain sensations.
Abstract: There has been much discussion in the philosophical literature recently of \"C-fibers firing\" and of \"C-fiber stimulations\" being plausibly identical with pain sensations. The example is used by, among others, Rorty ([9]), Cornman ([3]), Bernstein ([2]), Kripke ([7]), Feldman ([5]), and Lycan ([8]). Lycan, for instance, says: \"Consider the much touted version of the identity theory according to which pains or pain events are strictly identical with C-fiber stimulations\" ([8], p. 667). This is strange, because the attitude of most philosophers debating the mind-brain identity hypothesis has been that (a) nothing much hangs on what particular neural mechanism is supposed to be identical with a kind of psychological state or event, and (b) in any case the choice of a specific neural process is best left in the hands of neurophysiologists. Yet C-fiber activity is a neural mechanism, and it does have something to do with pain experience. But unfortunately for those who have trumpeted this example, C-fiber activity is a poor candidate for identification with feeling pain. In the first place, not all these small diameter, slow firing, unmyelinated afferent fibers conduct impulses related to having pain sensations: some are classified as mechanoreceptive and thermoreceptive fibers. Second, there are other, slightly thicker (because partly myelinated) fibers called A-delta fibers which also transmit impulses related to pain experience. Finally, while C-fibers extend all the way from receptor cells on the body surface to the spinal cord, they do not themselves project higher, and thus are not brain states when stimulated. (For an excellent review of the neuroanatomical data see
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that if inductive explanations are to be seen as generalizations of the causal-deterministic model, or if they are to satisfy the requirement that explanations ought to identify certain features of the universe that are nomically responsible for the explanadum event, then the high probability requirement seems to be unacceptable.
Abstract: Hempel's high probability requirement asserts that any rationally acceptable answer to the question 'Why did event X occur?' must offer information which shows that X was to be expected at least with reasonable probability. Salmon rejected this requirement in his S-R model. This led to a series of paradoxical consequences, such as the assertion that an explanation of an event can both lower its probability and make it arbitrarily low, and the assertion that the explanation of an outcome would have qualified as an explanation of its non-occurrence as well. We argue that if inductive explanations are to be seen as generalizations of the causal-deterministic model, or if they are to be seen as satisfying the requirement--fulfilled by the D-N model--that explanations ought to identify certain features of the universe that are nomically responsible for the explanadum event, then the high probability requirement seems to be unacceptable. If this is so, a realistically inspired theory of inductive explanation wi...
TL;DR: This paper takes a critical look at theory-free, statistical methodologies for processing and interpreting data taken from respondents answering a set of dichotomous questions and finds that the best fitting latent model depends on which one of the many informationally equivalent question sets is used.
Abstract: This paper takes a critical look at theory-free, statistical methodologies for processing and interpreting data taken from respondents answering a set of dichotomous (yes-no) questions. The basic issue concerns to what extent theoretical conclusions based on such analyses are invariant under a class of "informationally equivalent" question transformations. First the notion of Boolean equivalence of two question sets is discussed. Then Lazarsfeld's latent structure analysis is considered in detail. It is discovered that the best fitting latent model depends on which one of the many informationally equivalent question sets is used. This fact raises a number of methodological problems and pitfalls with latent structure analysis. Related problems with other methodologies are briefly discussed.
TL;DR: This paper argued that the difficulties involved with these attempts are based upon a confusion between three types of explanation, and that Professor David Kaplan's model of S-explanation provides a uniform treatment of all three types.
Abstract: Several revisions of the Hempel and Oppenheim definition of explanation have been offered in recent years, and none have gone uncriticized in the literature. In the present paper it is argued that the difficulties involved with these attempts are based upon a confusion between three types of explanation, and that Professor David Kaplan's model of S-explanation provides a uniform treatment of all three types.
TL;DR: This article traced the development of the structural postulates from Analysis of Matter to Human Knowledge (AMK) to human knowledge, and argued that the viability of Russell's program rests on a larger number of independent postulates than he thought were needed.
Abstract: From 1914 on Russell's epistemology was dominated by the attempt to show how we come by our knowledge of the external world. As he gradually became aware of the inadequacies of the "pure empiricist" approach, Russell realized that his program was viable only insofar as certain postulates of inference were allowed. In this paper I trace the development of the structural postulates from Analysis of Matter to Human Knowledge. The basic continuity of Russell's thought is established. Certain confusions implicit in the various formulations of the postulates are brought to light. Finally, it is argued that the viability of Russell's program rests on a larger number of independent postulates than he thought were needed. Some implications of Russell's work for current work in the philosophy of science are briefly sketched.
TL;DR: In this article, a method is proposed for empirically determining simultaneity at a distance within the special theory of relativity, and it is argued that this method is independent of Einstein's signalling method and provides a basis for denying the conventionality of distant simultaneity.
Abstract: In this paper a method is proposed for empirically determining simultaneity at a distance within the special theory of relativity. It is argued that this method is independent of Einstein's signalling method and provides a basis for denying the conventionality of distant simultaneity.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss two suggestions due to Baruch Brody in [2] as to how Hempel's deductive-nomological (D-N) criteria for explanation may be augmented as to afford sufficient conditions for explanatory adequacy.
Abstract: I shall discuss two suggestions due to Baruch Brody in [2] as to how Hempel's deductive-nomological (D-N) criteria for explanation may be so augmented as to afford sufficient conditions for explanatory adequacy. These suggestions, with respect to explanation of particular events, concern (a) the inclusion of descriptions of the cause of the event to be explained in the explanans, and (b) the inclusion of sentences ascribing essential properties to objects involved in the event to be explained in the explanans. The (a)and (b)-conditions are discussed in Sections 1 and 2 of this note. Brody's discussion is based on certain metaphysical presuppositions, viz. associated with the (a)-conditions, a non-Humean construal of causation; and associated with the (b)-conditions, an Aristotelian essentialism. The latter has been the theme of one critical study by Stemmer [5]. However, I do not want to dispute these foundations here; my concern is to show that, even if they are assumed, they cannot support the structure Brody tries to erect upon them.
TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that no hidden variable proofs for quantum mechanics deal exclusively with observables with discrete spectra and that similar results hold for observables having continuous spectra.
Abstract: Existing "no hidden variable proofs" for quantum mechanics deal exclusively with observables with discrete spectra. This note shows that similar results hold for observables with continuous spectra.
TL;DR: In this article, Goosens claims that my account of epistemic utility runs into serious difficulties when confronted with certain attractive conditions of adequacy for the evaluation of experiments, which are satisfied by the procedures for evaluating experiments.
Abstract: William K. Goosens claims to show that my account of epistemic utility runs into serious difficulties when confronted with certain attractive conditions of adequacy for the evaluation of experiments. I show that those conditions of adequacy which are, indeed, acceptable to both of us are satisfied by the procedures for evaluating experiments mandated by combining my theory of epistemic utilities with the approach to evaluating experiments on which Goosens' argument is based. In particular, I demonstrate that my theory does not violate the requirement that an "ideal experiment" be no worse than any alternative experiment.
TL;DR: In this article, Fine has pointed out that Kochen and Specker's argument requires the following principles: 1) the dynamical quantities associated with a hidden variable theory must have precise values for all of their properties.
Abstract: Simon Kochen and Ernst Specker's well-known argument ([6]) against hidden variable theories for quantum mechanics is also an argument against the possibility of quantum systems having, simultaneously, precise values for all of the dynamical quantities associated with such systems. Devices for defeating the argument' were in the literature even before its publication, but recently Arthur Fine has raised a new difficulty ([4]). Fine points out that Kochen and Specker's argument requires the following principles:
TL;DR: In this paper, the Compton-Simon experiment was used to show that the classical conservation laws for energy and momentum hold in quantum theory for each individual interaction, in a way that yields the classical exchange-and-balance of momentum (or energy) familiar from the laws of elastic collisions.
Abstract: In 1924, Bohr, Kramers and Slater tried to introduce into microphysics conservation principles that hold only on the average. This attempt was abandoned in the light of the Compton-Simon experiment (and its later refinements). Since that time, except for a moment of doubt in 1936, it has been thought that the classical conservation laws (for energy and momentum) hold in quantum theory for each individual interaction, in a way that yields the classical exchange-and-balance of momentum (or energy) familiar from the laws of elastic collisions. It has been thought, that is, that in each individual "collision" what one part of the total system loses in linear momentum (say) another part gains, so as to maintain the same total amount afterwards as before. To those familiar with discussions of the interpretation of quantum theory, however, it will be apparent that the very concepts needed to express this idea of an elastic collision are generally not admitted in the theory. For one needs the idea that both before and after collision the total system has a well-defined value for the conserved quantity and, moreover, that the various component parts of the system have well-defined values for those quantities out of which the conserved one is composed. But in the case of spin, for example, it is customary to say that although total spin may be conserved in certain interactions one cannot attribute values to the separate components of spin (in various directions) because the associated operators do not commute. (Thus the whole sum is not even the sum of its parts.) Moreover, one does not generally refer to the values of quantities except in eigenstates. Hence, in general, one would not refer to the value of the conserved quantity before
TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that the notion of a bare particular does not provide deeper ontological ground of individuation than a positional quality, and that positional qualities are insufficient for individuations.
Abstract: In this paper I attempt to show that an argument offered by Bergmann and Hausman against positional qualities and for bare particulars as individuators is unsound. I proceed by giving two ontological assays of an ordinary thing and showing that the entity that individuates on one assay--a bare particular--does not provide deeper ontological ground of individuation than the entity that individuates on the other assay--a positional quality. Since the argument for particulars is based on the premise that only particulars can ground individuation as deeply as is required, it follows that Bergmann and Hausman have not proved particulars are necessary and that positional qualities are insufficient for individuation.
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