From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism: On Some Relations between Confirmation, Empirical Progress, and Truth Approximation

374 Pages·2000·12.64 MB·English

by  Theo A. F. Kuipers (auth.)

FROM INSTRUMENTALISM TO
CONSTRUCTIVE REALISM
SYNTHESE LIBRARY
STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY,
LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Managing Editor:
JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University
Editors:
DIRK VAN DALEN, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
DONALD DAVIDSON, University of California, Berkeley
THEO A.F. KUIPERS, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
PATRICK SUPPES, Stanford University, California
JAN WOLENSKI, iagiellonian University. Krakow, Poland
VOLUME 287
FROM INSTRUMENTALISM
TO CONSTRUCTIVE REALISM
On Some Relations between Confirmation,
Empirical Progress, and Truth Approximation
by
THEO A.F. KUIPERS
University of Groningen, The Netherlands
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.Y.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-90-481-5369-5 ISBN 978-94-017-1618-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-1618-5
Printed on acid-free paper
Ali righ ts reserved
© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by K1uwer Academic Publishers in 2000
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owners.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD ix
CHAPTER 1: GENERAL INTRODUCTION: EPISTEMOLOGICAL
POSITIONS
1.1. Four perspectives on theories 1
1.2. The four main epistemological questions 3
1.3. The main epistemological and methodological claims 8
1.4. Preliminaries and a survey of cognitive structures 10
PART I: CONFIRMATION
INTRODUCTION TO PART I 15
CHAPTER 2: CONFIRMATION BY THE HD-METHOD 17
2.1. A qualitative theory of deductive confirmation 21
2.2. Ravens, emeralds, and other problems and solutions 27
2.3. Acceptance of hypotheses 38
CHAPTER 3: QUANTITATIVE CONFIRMATION, AND ITS 43
QUALITATIVE CONSEQUENCES
3.1. Quantitative confirmation 44
3.2. Qualitative consequences 55
3.3. Acceptance criteria 65
Appendix 1: Corroboration as inclusive and impure 68
confirmation
Appendix 2: Comparison with standard analysis of the raven 70
paradox
CHAPTER 4: INDUCTIVE CONFIRMATION AND INDUCTIVE 73
LOGIC
4.1. Inductive confirmation 74
4.2. The continuum of inductive systems 77
4.3. Optimum inductive systems 79
4.4. Inductive analogy by similarity and proximity 80
4.5. Universal generalizations 83
v
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART II: EMPIRICAL PROGRESS
INTRODUCTION TO PART II 91
CHAPTER 5: SEPARATE EVALUATION OF THEORIES BY THE 93
HD-METHOD
5.1. HD-evaluation of a theory 95
5.2. Falsifying general hypotheses, statistical test implications, 103
and complicating factors
CHAPTER 6: EMPIRICAL PROGRESS AND PSEUDOSCIENCE 111
6.1. Comparative HD-evaluation of theories 111
6.2. Evaluation and falsification in the light of truth 120
approximation
6.3. Scientific and pseudoscientific dogmatism 126
PART III: BASIC TRUTH APPROXIMATION
INTRODUCTION TO PART III 137
CHAPTER 7: TRUTH LIKENESS AND TRUTH APPROXIMATION 139
7.1. Actual truthlikeness 142
7.2. Nomic truthlikeness 146
7.3. Actual and nomic truth approximation 154
7.4. Survey of bifurcations 165
7.5. Novel facts, crucial experiments, inference to the best 166
explanation, and descriptive research programs
CHAPTER 8: INTUITIONS OF SCIENTISTS AND PHILOSOPHERS 173
8.1. Conceptual foundations of nomic truth approximation 173
8.2. Truthlikeness and the correspondence theory of truth 190
8.3. Explicating dialectical concepts 198
CHAPTER 9: EPISTEMOLOGICAL STRATIFICATION OF NOMIC 208
TRUTH APPROXIMATION
9.1. Theoretical and substantial nomic truth approximation 209
9.2. Referential truth approximation 219
9.3. Rules of inference, speculations, extensions, and 228
explanatory research programs
9.4. Epistemological positions reconsidered 236
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
PART IV: REFINED TRUTH APPROXIMATION
INTRODUCTION TO PART IV 243
CHAPTER 10: REFINEMENT OF NOMIC TRUTH 245
APPROXIMATION
10.1. Structurelikeness 246
10.2. Refined nomic truthlikeness and truth approximation 249
10.3. Foundations of refined nomic truth approximation 262
10.4. Application: idealization & concretization 268
to.5. Stratified refined nomic truth approximation 272
CHAPTER 11: EXAMPLES OF POTENTIAL TRUTH 278
APPROXIMATION
11.1. The old quantum theory 278
11.2. Capital structure theory 288
CHAPTER 12: QUANTITATIVE TRUTHLIKENESS AND TRUTH 299
APPROXIMATION
12.1. Quantitative actual truth likeness and truth approximation 301
12.2. Quantitative nomic truthlikeness 302
12.3. Quantitative nomic truth approximation 308
CHAPTER 13: CONCLUSION: CONSTRUCTIVE REALISM 317
13.1. Main conclusions 317
13.2. Three types of induction 320
13.3. Formation of observation terms 322
13.4. Direct applicability of terms 324
13.5. The metaphysical nature of scientific research 325
13.6. Portraits of real and fictitious scientists 327
13.7. Reference and ontology 329
13.8. Truth definitions and truth criteria 330
13.9. Metaphors 331
NOTES 334
REFERENCES 347
INDEX OF NAMES 355
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 359
FOREWORD
Over the years, I have been working on two prima facie rather different, if not
opposing, research programs, notably Carnap's confirmation theory and
Popper's truth approximation theory. However, I have always felt that they
were compatible, even smoothly synthesizable, for all empirical scientists use
confirmation intuitions, and many of them have truth approximation ideas.
Gradually it occurred to me that the glue between confirmation and truth
approximation was the instrumentalist or evaluation methodology, rather than
the falsificationist one. By separate and comparative evaluation of theories in
terms of their successes and problems, hence even if already falsified, the
evaluation methodology provides in theory and practice the straight route for
short-term empirical progress in science in the spirit of Laudan. Further analysis
showed that this sheds also new light on the long-term dynamics of science
and hence on the relation between the main epistemological positions, viz.,
instrumentalism, constructive empiricism, referential realism, and theory real
ism of a non-essentialist nature, here called constructive realism. Indeed, thanks
to the evaluation methodology, there are good, if not strong, reasons for all
three epistemological transitions "from instrumentalism to constructive
realism".
To be sure, the title of the book is ambiguous. In fact it covers (at least)
three interpretations. Firstly, the book gives an explication of the mentioned
and the intermediate epistemological positions. Secondly, it argues that the
successive transitions are plausible. Thirdly, it argues that this is largely due
to the instrumentalist rather than the falsificationist methodology. However,
to clearly distinguish between the instrumentalist methodology and the instru
mentalist epistemological position, the former is here preferably called the
evaluation methodology. In the book there arises a clear picture of scientific
development, with a short-term and a long-term dynamics. In the former there
is a severely restricted role for confirmation and falsification, the dominant role
is played by (the aim of) empirical progress, and there are serious prospects
for observational, referential and theoretical truth approximation. Moreover,
the long-term dynamics is enabled by (observational, referential and theoretical)
inductive jumps, after 'sufficient confirmation', providing the means to enlarge
the observational vocabulary in order to investigate new domains of reality.
This book presents the synthesis of many pieces that were published in various
journals and books. Material of the following earlier publications or publica
tions to appear has been used, with the kind permission of the publishers:
IX
x FOREWORD
'The qualitative and quantitative success theory of confirmation" Part 1 and
2, to appear in Logique et Analyse. (Chapter 2, 3).
"The Carnap-Hintikka programme in inductive logic", in Knowledge and
Inquiry: Essays on laakko Hintikka's epistemology and philosophy of science, ed.
Matti Sintonen, Poznan Studies, Vol. 51, 1997, pp. 87-99. (Chapter 4).
"Explicating the falsificationist and the instrumentalist methodology by
decomposing the hypothetico-deductive method", in Cognitive patterns in sci
ence and common sense, eds. T. Kuipers and A.R. Mackor, Poznan Studies,
Vol. 45, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1995, pp. 165-186. (Chapter 5).
"Naive and refined truth approximation", Synthese, 93, 1992, 299-341.
(Chapter 7, 9, 10).
"The dual foundation of qualitative truth approximation", Erkenntnis, 47.2,
1997,145-179. (Section 8.1., Chapter 10).
"Truthlikeness and the correspondence theory of truth", Logic, Philosophy
of Science and Epistemology, Proc. 11th Wittgenstein Symp. 1986, Wenen, 1987,
171-176. (Section 8.2.).
"Structuralist explications of dialectics", in: Advances in scientific philosophy.
Essays in honour of Paul Weingartner on the occasion of the 60-th anniversary
of his birthday, eds. G. Schurz and G. Dorn, Poznan Studies, Vol. 24, Rodopi,
Amsterdam, 1991,295-312. (Section 8.3.).
"Comparative versus quantitative truthlikeness definitions. Reply to
Mormann", Erkenntnis, 47.2, 1997, 187- 192. (Chapter 10).
"Sommerfeld's Atombau: a case study in potential truth approximation",
together with H. Hettema, in Cognitive patterns in science and common sense,
eds T. Kuipers and A.R. Mackor, Poznan Studies, Vol. 45, Rodopi, Amsterdam,
1995, pp. 273-297. (Section 11.1.)
"Truth approximation by concretization in capital structure theory", together
with K. Cools and B. Hamminga, in: Idealization VI: Idealization in economics,
eds B. Hamminga and N.B. de Marchi, Poznan Studies, Vol. 38, Amsterdam,
Rodopi, 1994, pp. 205-228. (Section 11.2.).
Many people have contributed over the years to my writing and teaching about
these subjects. To begin with the PhD-students who were engaged in related
research: Roberto Festa, Bert Hamminga, Hinne Hettema, Yao-Hua Tan, Henk
Zandvoort and Sjoerd Zwart. I profited a lot from interaction with them.
Moreover, I gratefully acknowledge the permission of the co-authors Hinne
Hettema, and Kees Cools and Bert Hamminga to use for CHAPTER 11 the
main parts of two earlier joint publications on applications of truthlikeness
ideas in physics and economics, respectively.
I would also like to thank many others who have critically commented upon
underlying research and previous versions of chapters: David Atkinson,
Wolfgang Balzer, Johan van Benthem, Anne Boomsma, Roger Cooke,
Domenico Costantini, Anton Derksen, Igor Douven, Job van Eck, Arthur Fine,
Kenneth Gemes, Carl Hempel, Johannes Heidema, Jaakko Hintikka, Richard