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.

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.

“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.

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).

Conventionalism, Truth, and Cosmological Furniture

1975 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 441-457
Author(s):  
J. O. Wisdom
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

The problem to be discussed here concerns ontology so far as it may not be formed by scientific theory. In brief terms, the problem arises in the following way. On the one hand, the world surely consists of whatever is there, irrespective of whether human beings are around or not, and irrespective especially of whether human beings have constructed any scientific theories depicting the nature of the world; on the other hand, scientific theories are subject to the limitation that we can never verify them or prove them to be true, so that the ontology prescribed by scientific theory is not firmly established but is only what is attributed to the world by a fallible scientific theory at any given time. The problem could also be put in terms of ‘conceptual networks’ or in terms of language-systems.

Apologist From The World of Science: John Polkinghorne Frs

1990 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Avis
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Physics ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Christian Belief ◽  
Scientific Education ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
The World ◽  
General Scientific ◽  
Scientific Worldview ◽  
Professional Scientist ◽  
John Polkinghorne

JohnPolkinghorne FRS (b.1930), the Cambridge Professor of Mathematical Physics turned Anglican parson enjoys unrivalled opportunities as an apologist for the Christian faith to those with a general scientific education. Without reading a word of his writings, many Christians will be encouraged to know that a distinguished professional scientist is so firmly persuaded of the truth of the Christian faith as to resign a prestigious professional position and embrace the far from prestigious calling of a Christian minister in the secular environment of today. Some who embark on his books may not understand all the scientific allusions, but they will be impressed by his testimony that orthodox Christian belief can exist in harmony with the scientific worldview and vocation.

Instrumentalism

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Kyle Stanford
Keyword(s):  
Newtonian Mechanics ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Restricted Class ◽  
Scientific Realist ◽  
Scientific Domain ◽  
The World

This chapter seeks to explore and develop the proposal that even our best scientific theories are not (as the scientific realist would have it) accurate descriptions of how things stand in otherwise inaccessible domains of nature but are instead simply powerful conceptual tools or instruments for engaging practically with the world around us. It describes a number of persistent challenges facing any attempt to apply the American Pragmatists’ global conception of all ideas, beliefs, theories, and cognitions quite generally as such tools or instruments to only a restricted class or category of such entities (such as our best scientific theories) instead. It then seeks to overcome these challenges by regarding scientific instrumentalism as simply applying the scientific realist’s own attitude toward a theory like Newtonian mechanics to even the most empirically successful and instrumentally powerful theory we have in any given scientific domain.

scholarly journals Scientific Realism versus Antirealism in Science Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seungbae Park
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
Science Teachers ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Moore’S Paradox ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Science Classrooms ◽  
Moore's Paradox ◽  
Scientific Antirealism

Scientific realists believe both what a scientific theory says about observables and unobservables. In contrast, scientific antirealists believe what a scientific theory says about observables, but not about unobservables. I argue that scientific realism is a more useful doctrine than scientific antirealism in science classrooms. If science teachers are antirealists, they are caught in Moore’s paradox when they help their students grasp the content of a scientific theory, and when they explain a phenomenon in terms of a scientific theory. Teachers ask questions to their students to check whether they have grasped the content of a scientific theory. If the students are antirealists, they are also caught in Moore’s paradox when they respond positively to their teachers’ questions, and when they explain a phenomenon in terms of a scientific theory. Finally, neither teachers nor students can understand phenomena in terms of scientific theories, if they are antirealists.

scholarly journals Człowiek w teorii — teoria w człowieku. Przykład biografii naukowej Czesława Robotyckiego (przyczynek do problemu upodmiotawiania dyskursów naukowych)

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-208
Author(s):  
Marcin Kafar
Keyword(s):  
Close Connection ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Contemporary Theory ◽  
Meeting Point ◽  
Cognitive Context ◽  
The World ◽  
Complicated Conditions

This article considers the dichotomy between theory and life, treating it as a reflection of the process of subjectivization of discourse of the anthropological variety. In accord with the accepted premise, scientific theories do not emerge on their own but as result of complicated conditions at the meeting point of subjective-individual experience and the language of theory, leading to a close connection between the maker of given theory and the theory itself. In such a cognitive context, legitimacy is achieved by analytical-interpretative tasks, which consist in seeking meanings and discovering the sense of manifold signs of the presence of the human being in theory (thus someone real, who situates himself openly or covertly in the constructed descriptions of the world) and the theory in the human being, that is, the conceptual or otherwise indicated manifestations of self-understanding. An instructive exemplification of such analytical and interpretative work is the scientific autobiography of an outstanding Polish anthropologist, Czesław Robotycki, a scholar developing the contemporary theory of culture while taking into account cultural paradoxes and the attitude of anthropological distancing which were personally important to him.

New Outlines of Structural Sociology, 1945–70

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-85
Author(s):  
J.P.S. Uberoi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
World View ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Indian Point

This chapter presents a discussion of international intellectual trends in the social sciences, theoretical and empirical studies in India, the question of independence of mind or home rule in intellectual institutions. Following the swarajist project outlined earlier of viewing Europe and its systems of knowledge and practices from an independent Indian point of view, this chapter is in effect a research outline for a new structural sociology in India. We are introduced to structuralism as it exists in the world, its scope and definition and as a methodology for the social sciences. This is followed by the approach to structuralism as scientific theory, method and as philosophical world view. Finally discusses are the principles of structural analysis, structuralism in language, literature and culture, in social structure, with regard to society and the individual, religion, philosophy, politics, sociology and social-anthropology.

1. The methods and fruits of science

2021 ◽  
pp. 7-22
Author(s):  
David Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Dark Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Real Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Topics ◽  
Theory Test

This chapter briefly discusses central key topics in the philosophy of science that the remainder of the book draws upon. It begins by considering the scientific method. ‘Induction’—the idea that we construct scientific theories just by generalizing from observations—is a very poor match to real science. ‘Falsification’—Popper’s idea that we create a theory, test against observation, and discard it if it fails the test—is much more realistic, but still too simple: data only falsifies data given auxiliary assumptions that can themselves be doubted. The issues are illustrated through an example from modern astrophysics: dark matter. The chapter then explores how we can resolve issues of underdetermination, where two theories give the same predictions. Finally, it introduces ‘scientific realism’, the view that our best theories tell us things about the world that go beyond what is directly observable.

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