“Laws” and “Theories” in Chemistry Do Not Obey the Rules

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Christie ◽  
John R. Christie
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
External World ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Classical Physics ◽  
Small Branch ◽  
The World ◽  
Newton’S Laws ◽  
Ontological Sense ◽  
The Way

Most philosophers’ discussions of issues relating to “laws of nature” and “scientific theories” have concentrated heavily on examples from classical physics. Newton’s laws of motion and of gravitation and the various conservation laws are often discussed. This area of science provides very clear examples of the type of universal generalization that constitutes the widely accepted view of what a law of nature or a scientific theory “ought to be.” But classical physics is just one very small branch of science. Many other areas of science do not seem to throw up generalizations of nearly the same breadth or clarity. The question of whether there are any laws of nature in biology, or of why there are not, has often been raised (e.g., Ghiselin, 1989; Ruse, 1989). In the grand scheme of science, chemistry stands next to physics in any supposed reductive hierarchy, and chemistry does produce many alleged laws of nature and scientific theories. An examination of the characters of these laws and theories, and a comparison with those that arise in classical physics, might provide a broader and more balanced view of the nature of laws and theories and of their role in science. From the outset, we should very carefully define the terms of our discourse. The notion of laws of nature has medieval origin as the edicts of an all-powerful deity to his angelic servants about how the functioning of the world should be arranged and directed. It may be helpful to distinguish three quite different senses in which laws of nature are considered in modern discussions. On occasion, the discussion has become sidetracked and obscure because of conflation and confusion of two or more of these senses. In the first, or ontological, sense, laws of nature may be considered as a simply expressed generalization about the way an external world does operate. Laws of nature are often seen as principles of the way the world works. They are an objective part of the external world, waiting to be discovered. The laws that we have and use may be only approximations of the deeper, true laws of nature.

The Phenomenology of “Nothingness” by Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre

2021 ◽  
pp. 120-130
Author(s):  
Gregory N. Siplivii ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Jacques Lacan ◽  
General Flow ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
The World ◽  
Ontological Sense ◽  
The Way

This article is devoted to the analysis of the phenomenology “Nothingness” by Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre. Through research of existential phe­nomenology, the article also touches on the topic of “mood” as philosophical in­tentionality. Various kinds of “moods”, such as faintness (Verstimmung), ennui (Langeweile), burden (Geworden), inquisitiveness (Neugier), care (Sorge) and conscience (Gewissen), by Martin Heidegger’s and nausea (la nausée), anxiety (l’anxiété), dizziness (le vertige) by Jean-Paul Sartre, is considered in the context of what they may matter in an ontological sense. The phenomenologically under­stood “mood” as a general intentionality towards something is connected with the way in which the existing is able to ask about its own self. In addition, the ar­ticle forms the concept of the original ontological and phenomenological “in­completeness” of any existential experience. It is this incompleteness, this “al­ways-still-not” that provides an existential opportunity to realize oneself not only thrown into the world, but also different from the general flow of being. This “elusive emptiness” is interpreted in the article in accordance with the psychoan­alytic category of “real” (Jacques Lacan).

Projectivism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Blackburn
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Temporal Order ◽  
The World ◽  
Great Propensity ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
The Way

‘Projectivism’ is used of philosophies that agree with Hume that ‘the mind has a great propensity to spread itself on the world’, that what is in fact an aspect of our own experience or of our own mental organization is treated as a feature of the objective order of things. Such philosophies distinguish between nature as it really is, and nature as we experience it as being. The way we experience it as being is thought of as partly a reflection or projection of our own natures. The projectivist might take as a motto the saying that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and seeks to develop the idea and explore its implications. The theme is a constant in the arguments of the Greek sceptics, and becomes almost orthodox in the modern era. In Hume it is not only beauty that lies in the eye (or mind) of the beholder, but also virtue, and causation. In Kant the entire spatio-temporal order is not read from nature, but read into it as a reflection of the organization of our minds. In the twentieth century it has been especially non-cognitive and expressivist theories of ethics that have adopted the metaphor, it being fairly easy to see how we might externalize or project various sentiments and attitudes onto their objects. But causation, probability, necessity, the stances we take towards each other as persons, even the temporal order of events and the simplicity of scientific theory have also been candidates for projective treatment.

The Problem of the External World

1988 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
D. W. Hamlyn ◽  
J. E. Tiles
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

Heidegger says concerning the question of the possibility of a proof of the existence of an external world that ‘the “scandal of philosophy” (Kant's words) is not that this proof has yet to be given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again’. Heidegger thinks this because our being (Dasein) is in the world, and this is something which Descartes for one failed to appreciate. I am not concerned here to answer the question whether Heidegger's own views on these matters will do, though I think that they will not. Indeed they might well be said to beg the question at issue, in that Heidegger starts from the presumption that we are actually in the world, even if we are not in it in the way in which the tree in the garden is (and does not this last point make a great difference to the situation?). Another way of reacting to Heidegger would be to say that he does not treat the fact and force of scepticism seriously enough when he makes that presumption. After all, it is possible for us to raise sceptical doubts about the existence of a world apart from ourselves, while it is not possible for the tree in the garden to act similarly. Hence, even if we make the presumption that we are in the world, as Heidegger insists, we are in it in a way that leaves untouched the possibility of sceptical doubts about what that world and our being in it are like. It might, logically, be the case, for example, that the world consists of just me and that my being in the world is no more than for me just to exist. In other words, my being in the world does not directly entail that there exists a world apart from me.

Herman Bavinck and Thomas Reid on Perception and Knowing God

2018 ◽  
Vol 111 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel Sutanto
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
External World ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
External Reality ◽  
External Objects ◽  
The World ◽  
Triune God ◽  
Reformed Epistemology ◽  
The Way

AbstractNicholas Wolterstorff argues that Kant had erected an epistemological boundary between mental representations and external reality that precipitates an anxiety in modern theologians about whether one can properly refer to God. As a way past this boundary, Wolterstorff's Reformed epistemology retrieves Thomas Reid's account of perception as an alternative to Kant, according to which knowledge of external objects is direct and immediate. Further, Wolterstorff points to the Dutch neo-Calvinist Herman Bavinck as one who bears many “reidian” elements in his epistemology, especially in the way in which Bavinck argues that the epistemic accessibility of the external world ought to be taken for granted. The thesis of this present paper, however, is that a closer investigation of Bavinck's account of perception reveals that he, unlike Reid, accepts the gap between mental representations and external objects, such that representations are those through which we know the world. Bavinck affirms that a correspondence between the two can be obtained by an appeal to the resources found in Christian revelation. In effect, what emerges in a close comparison of Bavinck and Reid is that Bavinck's account is an alternative theological response to the kantian boundary—one according to which mental representations correspond with external objects because both participate in an organically connected cosmos shaped by a Triune God.

Scientific Realism

2021 ◽  
pp. 251-253
Author(s):  
Heikki Patomäki
Keyword(s):  
Interwar Period ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Constructive Empiricism ◽  
Van Fraassen ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
True Story ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status

This chapter addresses scientific realism. After the heyday of empiricism in the interwar period and its immediate aftermath, many critical reactions to empiricism seemed to suggest scientific realism. It was widely agreed that scientific theories make references to things that cannot be directly observed (or at least seen), and thus emerged the issue of the status of non-observables. As scientific realism became increasingly dominant, new philosophical stances such as Bas C. van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism were often defined in opposition to it. Van Fraassen understands scientific realism as a claim that science aims to give us, in its theories, a literally true story of what the world is like; and acceptance of a scientific theory involves the belief that it is true. More in line with established forms of scientific realism, Ilkka Niiniluoto talks about verisimilitude, or truth-likeness. This concept is supposed to avoid the consequences of claiming to have access to the truth itself. The chapter then considers how the social sciences seem to pose difficulties for scientific realism.

The Verisimilitudinarian approach to ‘the Truth’

Perspectives ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-39
Author(s):  
Andrea Roselli
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
The World ◽  
Epistemic Notion ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe Verisimilitudinarian approach to scientific progress (VS, for short) is traditionally considered a realist-correspondist model to explain the proximity of our best scientific theories to the way things really are in the world out there (ʻthe Truthʻ, with the capital ʻtʻ). However, VS is based on notions, such as ʻestimated verisimilitudeʻ or ʻapproximate truthʻ, that dilute the model in a functionalist-like theory. My thesis, then, is that VS tries to incorporate notions, such as ʻprogressʻ, in a pre-constituted metaphysical conception of the world, but fails in providing a fitting framework. The main argument that I will develop to support this claim is that the notions that they use to explain scientific progress (ʻestimated verisimilitudeʻ or ʻapproximate truthʻ) have nothing to do with ʻthe Truthʻ. After presenting Cevolani and Tamboloʻs answer (2013) to Birdʻs arguments (2007), I will claim that VS sacrifices the realist-correspondist truth in favor of an epistemic notion of truth, which can obviously be compatible with certain kinds of realism but not with the one the authors have in mind (the correspondence between our theories and the way things really are).

scholarly journals Psicólogo do trabalho no mundo das práxis capitalista: reflexões fenomenológico-existenciais

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-168
Author(s):  
Sylvia Mara Pires de FREITAS
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Psychology ◽  
External World ◽  
Industrial Psychology ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way ◽  
Psychology Of Work

This article, primarily and in a brief, contextualizing the Industrial Psychology, Organizational Psychology and Psychology of Work, through its historical constructions and grounds of their philosophical hegemonic theories, which underpin the knowledge and the practices of psychologist in the work. As a central focus, has a further reading for this sub-area of psychology, through phenomenology and existentialism of Sartre, thus enabling the expansion of the practice of psychology in the relations in the work, surrounded by capitalist praxis. Finally, raising issues and considerations on the experience of the psychologist's work, when, to help the worker to transcend the tensions between its internal and external world, as well as employee has their values marked its own tensions in that context. Then focuses on the need for psychologists to be aware of their limitations and prejudices with everyday phenomena, which can block changes in the way in which live the world of work.

scholarly journals METHOD OF GENERAL SCIENTIFIC ONTOLOGICAL JUSTIFICATION OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-11
Author(s):  
Sergey Lebedev
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Logical Contradiction ◽  
The World ◽  
General Scientific

The article describes the method of General scientific ontological justification of scientific theories. Its essence consists in the following: 1) proof of the absence of logical contradiction between a particular scientific theory and a scientific picture of the world; 2) the interpretation of specific scientific theories in terms of relevant General scientific picture of the world; 3) the withdrawal of the main provisions will describe a scientific theory as a consequence of the General scientific picture of the world. The General scientific ontological justification of the scientific theory is only one of the factors of legitimization of the new theory as true along with three other forms of its legitimization: paradigmatic, epistemological and philosophical justification.

Lewis and Quine on Private Meanings and Subjectivism

1971 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-44
Author(s):  
Hugh T. Wilder
Keyword(s):  
World Order ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Primary Motivation ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
The World ◽  
Naturalistic Theory ◽  
Propositional Theory ◽  
The Way

In the early chapters of Mind and the World Order, Lewis develops a theory of meaning which has interesting points of similarity with that mentalistic or propositional theory of meaning which has been rejected by Quine, in Word and Object and elsewhere. There are also interesting similarities, however, between Lewis’ theory and Quine's own naturalistic theory. In this paper, I shall concentrate on one such similarity: namely, the analogy, noticed by Quine, between the predicament formulated in his own thesis of the indeterminacy of translation, and the “predicament of private worlds” in which Lewis’ theory of meaning is involved.These analogous predicaments have a bearing on the problems of the commensurability of scientific theories and of objectivity in science in general; in fact, my primary motivation in attempting to explicate the analogy between Quine's theory of meaning and Lewis’ theory is to clear the way for an assessment of Quine's position on the problem of the objectivity of theories in science.

On the Aim of Scientific Theories in Relating to the World: A Defence of the Semantic Account

Dialogue ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Baur
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Bernard Lonergan ◽  
Semantic View ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
Semantic Account ◽  
The World ◽  
Correspondence Rules

According to the received view of scientific theories, a scientific theory is an axiomatic-deductive linguistic structure which must include some set of guidelines (“correspondence rules”) for interpreting its theoretical terms with reference to the world of observable phenomena. According to the semantic view, a scientific theory need not be formulated as an axiomatic-deductive structure with correspondence rules, but need only specify models which are said to be “isomorphic” with actual phenomenal systems. In this paper, I consider both the received and semantic views as they bear on the issue of how a theory relates to the world (Section 1). Then I offer a critique of some arguments frequently put forth in support of the semantic view (Section 2). Finally, I suggest a more convincing “meta-methodological” argument (based on the thought of Bernard Lonergan) in favour of the semantic view (Section 3).

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