Most recent philosophical thought about the scientific representation of the world has focused on dyadic relationships between language-like entities and the world, partic- ularly the semantic relationships of reference and truth. Drawing…
Philosophy of Science
In this subdiscipline:
38,436 papers
Popular papers
-
-
The main argument for scientific realism is that our present theories in science are so successful empirically that they can't have got that way by chance-Instead they must somehow have latched onto the blueprint of the universe. The main argument…
-
Constructive empiricism is supposed to offer a positive alternative to scientific realism that dispenses with the need for metaphysics. I first review the terms of the debate before arguing that the standard objections to constructive empiricism are…
-
We examine, from the partial structures perspective, two forms of applicability of mathematics: at the bottom level, the applicability of theoretical structures to the appearances, and at the top level, the applicability of mathematical to physical…
-
Doi: 10.1086/341857 Philosophers of science typically associate the causalmechanical view of scientific explanation with the work of Railton and Salmon. In this paper I shall argue that the defects of this view arise from an inadequate analysis of…
-
(i) Scientific realism is primarily a metaphysical doctrine about the existence and nature of the unobservables of science. (ii) There are good explanationist arguments for realism, most famously that from the success of science, provided abduction…
-
-
Abstract This paper examines the role of mathematical idealization in describing and explaining various features of the world. It examines two cases: first, briefly, the modeling of shock formation using the idealization of the continuum. Second,…
-
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…
-
Two major modern accounts of explanation are the causal and the unification accounts. My aim in this paper is to provide a kind of unification of the two, by using the central technical apparatus of the unification account to solve a central problem…
-
In recent years a doctrine known as ontic structural realism (OSR) has achieved a degree of notoriety, but many people remain confused as to what exactly the doctrine amounts. In this paper three main variants of OSR are defined and discussed: (i)…
-
Metaphysicians speak of laws of nature in terms of necessity and universality, and that conception played a role in the birth of modern physics some centuries ago, but today physicists speak in terms of symmetry, transformations, and invariance.…
-
The more than 40 readings in this anthology cover the most important developments of the past six decades, charting the rise and decline of logical positivism ...
-
The story of how Perrins experimental work established the reality of atoms and molecules has been a staple in (realist) philosophy of science writings Ill argue that how this story is told distorts both what the work was and its significance, and…
-
Bas van Fraassen's empiricist reading of Perrin's achievement invites the question: whose doubts about atoms did Perrin put to rest? This comment recontextualizes the argument and applies the notion of empirical grounding to some contemporary work…
-
The semantic view of theories is one according to which theories are construed as models of their linguistic formulations. The implications of this view for scientific realism have been little discussed. Contrary to the suggestion of various…
-
The semantic view, which has been dominant for more than thirty years, is a view of scientic theories which focuses on models. Over recent years it has attracted renewed interest, and criticism. This interest has been sparked, at least in part, by…
-
The official model of explanation proposed by the logical empiricists, the covering law model, is subject to familiar objections. The goal of the present paper is to explore an unofficial view of explanation which logical empiricists have sometimes…
-
The goal of the present article is to contribute to the epistemology and methodology of computer simulations. The central thesis is that the process of simulation modeling takes the form of an explorative cooperation between experimenting and…
-
Comprised of essays by top scholars in the field, this volume offers concise overviews of philosophical issues raised by biology. Brings together a team of eminent scholars to explore the philosophical issues raised by biology Addresses traditional…
Popular tags
Sign up today - FREE
Mendeley saves you time finding and organizing research. Learn more
- All your research in one place
- Add and import papers easily
- Access it anywhere, anytime
Start using Mendeley in seconds!
Active members
-
Assistant ProfessorUniversidad Central de Venezuela -
Student (Master)Mexico City, Mexico -
Ph.D. StudentUniversidad de Buenos Aires -
Student (Master)Wiesbaden, Germany -
Student (Master)Secção Autónoma de Filosofia e História das Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa