Characterization of scientific prediction from language: An analysis of Nicholas Rescher's Proposal

Abstract

Language is one of the constituents of science, which is studied from the semantics of science. Scientific prediction can be understood as language, so it can be analyzed within the theory of meaning. Nicholas Rescher is one of the authors who made most contributions to the study of prediction. When he analyses scientific prediction from language, his starting point is a pragmatic conception, since he gives primacy to the view of meaning as use. In his pragmatic conception of meaning, scientific prediction is the result of an activity that seeks to obtain justified answers to meaningful questions about future occurrences. Within this framework of the primacy of pragmatics, the paper seeks to offer an analysis of the predictive statements in Rescher's proposal. In order to do this, the problems at stake are considered. (i) The attention goes to his proposal about prediction as a statement. Thus, the features of the predictive statements are studied and the timing feature is analyzed, so the problem of retrodiction is also considered. (ii) The focus is on different types of scientific prediction, which Rescher does not develop in an explicit way. In this regard, we can see differences between the language of basic science and the language of applied science. (iii) His approach on the limits of prediction and language is analyzed, both regarding the barriers between the scientific predictive language and the non-scientific predictive statements and the confines of ceiling of the predictive language of science.