PSA 1972: Proceedings of the 1972 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association

428 Pages·1974·9.99 MB·English

by  Adolf Grünbaum (auth.)

SYNTHESE LIBRARY
MONOGRAPHS ON EPISTEMOLOGY,
LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE,
SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND OF KNOWLEDGE,
AND ON THE MATHEMATICAL METHODS OF
SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Editors:
DONALD DAVIDSON, Rockefeller University and Princeton University
JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Academy of Finland and Stanford University
GABRIEL NUCHELMANS, University of Leyden
WESLEY C. SALMON, University of Arizona
VOLUME 64
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
EDITED BY ROBERT S. COHEN AND MARX W. WARTOFSKY
VOLUME XX
PSA 1972
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 1972 BIENNIAL MEETING
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE ASSOCIATION
Edited by
KENNETH F. SCHAFFNER AND ROBERTS. COHEN
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
I
DORDRECHT-HOLLAND BOSTON-U.S.A.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72---{j24l69
Cloth edition: ISBN 90 277 0408 2
Paperback edition: ISBN 90 277 0409 0
Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland
Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada and Mexico
by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc.
306 Dartmouth Street, Boston,
Mass. 02116, U.S.A.
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 1974 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm,
or any other means, without written permission from the publisher
Printed in The Netherlands by D. Reidel, Dordrecht
PREFACE
This book contains selected papers from symposia and contributed
sessions presented at the third biennial meeting of the Philosophy of
Science Association, held in Lansing, Michigan, on October 27-29,
1972. We are grateful to Michigan State University, and especially to
Professor Peter Asquith and his students and colleagues, for their
friendly and efficient hospitality in organizing the circumstances of the
sessions and of the 'intersessions', the unscheduled free time which is
so important to any scholarly gathering.
Several of the symposium papers have unhappily not been made
available: those of Alasdair MacIntyre and Sidney Morgenbesser in
the session on the social sciences, that of Ian Hacking in the session on
randomness and that of Imre Lakatos in the session on discovery and
rationality in science.
Department of History and KENNETH F. SCHAFFNER
Philosophy of Science,
University of Pittsburgh
Center for the Philosophy and ROBERT S. COHEN
History of Science,
Boston University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE v
PART I/SYMPOSIUM: SPACE, TIME AND MATTER:
THE FOUNDATIONS OF GEOMETRODYNAMICS
ADOLF GRUNBAUM / Space, Time, and Matter: The Foundations
of Geometrodynamics. Introductory Remarks 3
CHARLES W. MISNER / Some Topics for Philosophical Inquiry
Concerning the Theories of Mathematical Geometrodynamics
and of Physical Geometrodynamics 7
JOHN STACHEL / The Rise and Fall of Geometrodynamics 31
PART II / PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS
OF BIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY
STUART KAUFFMAN / Elsasser, Generalized Complementarity,
and Finite Classes: A Critique of His Anti-Reductionism 57
WILLIAM C. WIMSATT / Complexity and Organization 67
RICHARD F. KITCHENER / B. F. Skinner - The Butcher, The
Baker, The Behavior-Shaper 87
PART 111/ SYMPOSIUM : FUNDAMENTAL
PROBLEMS IN THE CONCEPT OF RANDOMNESS
WESLEY C. SALMON / Fundamental Problems in the Concept
of Randomness. Dedication to Leonard J. Savage 101
J. ALBER TO COFFA / Randomness and Knowledge 103
IRVING JOHN GOOD / Random Thoughts about Randomness 117
HENRY E. KYBURG / Randomness 137
VIII T ABLE OF CONTENTS
PART IV / HISTORICAL ISSUES IN
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
JILL VANCE BUROKER / Kant, the Dynamical Tradition, and
the Role of Matter in Explanation 153
PART V / PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS
OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
THOMAS MCCARTHY / The Operation Called Verstehen: To-
wards a Redefinition of the Problem 167
N. KOERTGE / On Popper's Philosophy of Social Science 195
LAIRD ADDIS / Monistic Theories of Society 209
PART VI/SYMPOSIUM: VALUES,
IDEOLOGY AND OBJECTIVITY IN
THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
MICHAEL SCRIVEN / The Exact Role of Value Judgments in
Science 219
PART VII / PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS
OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES
NANCY CARTWRIGHT / A Dilemma for the Traditional Inter-
pretation of Quantum Mixtures 251
PAUL FITZGERALD / Nowness and the Understanding of Time 259
PART VIII / SYMPOSIUM: MODALITY
ANb THE ANALYSIS OF SCIENTIFIC
PROPOSITIONS
ALDO BRESSAN / On the Usefulness of Modal Logic in Axiomat-
izations of Physics 285
PATRICK SUPPES / The Essential but Implicit Role of Modal
Concepts in Science 305
ALDO BRESSAN / Comments on Suppes' Paper: The Essential but
Implicit Role of Modal Concepts in Science 315
T ABLE OF CONTENTS IX
BAS C. VAN FRAASSEN / Bressan and Suppes on Modality 323
ALDO BRESSAN / Replies to van Fraassen's Comments: Bressan
and Suppes on Modality 331
PART IX/SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION
JAMES H. FET Z ER / Statistical Explanations 337
RONALD C. HOPSON / The Objects of Acceptance: Competing
Scientific Explanations 349
PART X/TRUTH AND REALISM IN SCIENCE
MICHAEL BRADIE / Is Scientific Realism a Contingent Thesis? 367
HENR Y c. BYERL Y / Realist Foundations of Measurement 375
PART XI/SYMPOSIUM: DISCOVERY,
RATIONALITY AND PROGRESS IN SCIENCE
STEPHEN TOULMIN / Rationality and Scientific Discovery 387
DUDLEY SHAPERE / Discovery, Rationality, and Progress in
Science: A Perspective in the Philosophy of Science 407
PART XII/INDUCTIVE LOGIC
ALEX C. MICHALOS / Rationality Between the Maximizers and the
Satisficers 423
PART I
SYMPOSIUM: SPACE, TIME, AND MATTER:
THE FOUNDATIONS
OF GEOMETRODYNAMICS
ADOLF GRUNBAUM*
SPACE, TIME AND MATTER:
THE FOUNDATIONS OF GEOMETRODYNAMICS
Introductory Remarks
At the 1960 International Philosophy of Science Congress, J. A. Wheeler
gave a synoptic paper entitled 'Curved Empty Space-Time as the Building
Material of the Physical World'. In this paper, Wheeler (1962a) posed
the following question (p. 361):
Is space-time only an arena within which fields and particles move about as 'physical' and
'foreign' entities? Or is the four-dimensional continuum all there is? Is curved empty
geometry a kind of magic building material out of which everything in the physical world
is made: (1) slow curvature in one region of space describes a gravitational field; (2) a rippled
geometry with a different type of curvature somewhere else describes an electromagnetic
field; (3) a knotted-up region of high curvature describes a concentration of charge and
mass-energy that moves like a particle? Are fields and particles foreign entities immersed
in geometry, or are they nothing but geometry?
It would be difficult to name any issue more central to the plan of physics than this:
whether space-time is ouly an arena, or whether it is everything .... In 1870 Clifford put
the issue before the Cambridge Philosophical Society in a more explicit form than anyone
ever had before - or anyone was to do for many decades: "I hold in fact (I) that small
portions of space are in fact of a nature analogous to little hills on a surface which is on the
average flat; namely, that the ordinary laws of geometry are not valid in them; (2) that this
property of being curved or distorted is continually being passed on from one portion of
space to another after the manner of a wave; (3) that this variation of the curvature of space
is what really happens in that phenomenon which we call the motion of matter, whether
ponderable or ethereal; (4) that in the physical world nothing else takes place but this
variation, subject (possibly) to the law of continuity."
Wheeler epitomized his own attitude toward the monistic ontology en
visioned by W. K. Clifford by declaring (Wheeler, 1962b, p. 225):
There is nothing in the world except empty curved space. Matter, charge, electromagnetism,
and other fields are only manifestations of the bending of space. Physics is geometry.
And Wheeler (1962a, pp. 365-368) points out that in 1956, Charles
Misner - one of our symposiasts - rediscovered a forgotten result due to
Rainich as follows: electromagnetism can be geometrized along with
gravitation in a unified way (via one set of purely geometrical 4th order
equations) within the framework of Einstein's 1916 theory. In this way,
Misner showed, as Wheeler puts it, how we can have 'electromagnetism
without electromagnetism' (Wheeler, 1962a, p. 368) by building the elec
tromagnetic field out of space-time geometry, as it were. By the same
Kenneth F. Schaffner and Robert S. Cohen (eds.) , PSA 1972, 3-5. All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 1974 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland
4 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
token, Misner showed how Einstein's theory can evade Pauli's jocular
complaint that unified theory had disobeyed the injunction: "Let no
man join together what God has put asunder."
Six years later, Wheeler (1968) published a book in German entitled
Einsteins Vision whose subtitle is 'What is the Current Status of Ein
stein's Vision to Conceive of Everything as Geometry?'. Wheeler tells us
that Einstein was animated by the hope of implementing Clifford's con
ception of the universe as one of pure geometry (1962a, p. 361):
The vision of Clifford and Einstein can be summarized in a single phrase, 'a geometro
dynamical universe': a world whose properties are described by geometry, and a geometry
whose curvature changes with time - a dynamical geometry.
For nineteen years, Wheeler and his co-workers developed some of the
detailed physics of Clifford's 1870 ontology of curved empty space-time
as an outgrowth of general relativity under the name of 'geometro
dynamics' ('GMD'). But in a lecture given at a conference held within a
few weeks after the present Symposium,l Wheeler disavowed his erst
while long quest for a reduction of all physics to space-time geometry.
In a brief notice of that Conference (Nature 240 (1972)),2 the pertinent
part of this lecture was summarized as follows: "He [Wheeler] also
developed the theme that the structure of space-time could only be
understood in terms of the structure of elementary particles rather than
the converse statement which he has advocated for many years."
Some of the accomplishments, prospects and problems of GMD are
canvassed in the papers by Misner and Stachel below.
Another GMD Symposium was held at the December 1972 Boston
Meeting of the American Philosophical Association. The contributions
by the principal speakers at the latter Symposium are available in Ear
man (1972), Graves (1972) and Stein (1972).
The remarks which I made as session chairman of the two Geometro
dynamics Symposia held at the October 1972 PSA Congress and at the
December 1972 APA Meeting have been expanded into a monograph
length chapter 'General Relativity, Geometrodynamics and Ontology'
(Griinbaum, 1973b, Ch. 22). Some excerpts from this chapter, which has
been significantly influenced by John Stachel, appear in Griinbaum
(1973a) while other extracts are published in Griinbaum (1973c).
University of Pittsburgh