The Philosophies of Science PDF
Preview The Philosophies of Science
Th e * Plfi 1osophi,e"srof Science OPUS General Editors Keith Thomas Alan Ryan Peter Medawar R HARRÊ The Philosophies of Science An Introductory Survey Oxford, New York Toronto Melbourne OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford University Press Walton Street Oxford 0X2 6DP London Glasgow New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Kuala Lumpur Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies m Beirut Berlin Ibadan Mexico City Nicosia Oxford ts a trade mark of Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 888056 1 © Oxford University Press 1972 First published 1972 Sixth impression 1983 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic mechanical photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Oxford University Press This book is sold subject to the condition that it shell not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this conditwn being imposed on the subsequent purchaser Printed in Great Britain by The Guernsey Press Co Ltd Guernsey Channel Islands Preface IN THIS BOOK I have tried to introduce the philosophy of science within wider philosophical contexts, in the attempt to show how the problems which appear to be specific to science are actually species of wider philosophical issues There have been many attempts to make sense of: the methods by which we acquire knowledge of nature, and to set that know ledge within a more comprehensive metaphysics While I have aimed at making manifest the variety of ways m which a rational basis for science has been sought, I have also tried to show how in the end two opposed positions seem to coalesce out of the apparent variety There is the positivist position, which tends to treat theories as il they are theorems m geometry, and to restrict empirical knowledge to the passing show of sense experience Over against this is the realist poirt of view which emphasizes the work of the human imagination m leading to conceptions of the realities behind sense experience, and which admits the content of theories to the status of empirical knowledge I have tried to present the case for positivism as fairly as possible, though I believe the case against that point of view, on intellec- tual historical, and moral grounds, to be overwhelming The bibliography at the end of this, book contains suggestions for further reading along both realist and positivist lines which I hope will allow the reader to form his own opinions on these difficult matters Contents LIST OF riCURES VUl X The Philosophy of Science i s The Forms of Reasoning m Science 35 3 Scientific Knowledge 62 4 Metaphysical Theories 100 5 The Corpuscularian Inheritance 140 6 Explanation 168 BIBLIOGRAPHY 184 INDEX 187 List of Figures 1 The Philosophy of Science MOST PEOPLE SUPPOSE that philosophers think about very general and very deep questions at the heart of which is the prob lern of the relation of Man to the Universe Philosophers are popularly thought to offer ideas about the general puiposes of living, and even the more particular aims one should set one self m one s ordinary life Philosophy of science m this sense would be a discussion of the place of the scientific enterprise in the whole pattern of life It would probably be concerned with providing an ultimate justification for doing science, that is with whether science was worth doing at all It might be digued, for instance that the accumulation of scientific knowledge is destructive of the conditions for living the best possible human life It might be thought that the effort expended in the pursuit of scientific knowledge might be better employed m the cultivation of artistic sensibility, in the refinement of manners, and m the embellish ment of the environment I am not going to pursue that kind of discussion though I am very far from thinking that discussions of such general questions have no value In this book I shall be discussing a great many detailed ques fions which, anse m the actual practice of science itself I shall be trying to explain how our knowledge of the world and the things m it is advanced I shall be trying to make clear what principles are assumed in the use of time honoured methods of acquiring knowledge We shall find that certain principles are operative in scientific work It is the aim of this book to make these principles manifest THE PHILOSOPHY Ol" SCIENCE 10 Philosophy has four main branches logic, the theory of reason mg. epistemology, the theory of knowledge, metaphysics the theory of concepts and their relations, and ethics, the theory of evaluation, particularly moral evaluation I shall not be concerned here with ethics We begin in this chapter with a preliminary account of the first three bi anclies of study, and briefly discuss the relations between them By the study of examples of the investigation of logical epistemological and metaphysical ques tions our understanding of these branches of philosophy will deepen Logic Logic is the study of the canons or principles of correct reason mg To discover logical principles from the study of examples we need to be able to recognize when a piece of reasoning is coirect If we knew, only by reference to principles of logic, which argu ments were valid and which invalid then we should have no need to study examples of reasoning to try to discover principles, be cause we should already know them In fact we are able to tell whether some piece of reasoning is correct or mconect without knowing or deliberatively applying any principles of logic that is, without explicit reference to any canons of correct reasoning The study of logic will enable us to say why some piece of reason- ing is correct or incorrect However once the principles of logic have been extracted from examples it is inevitable that they should be used as canons, that is to express the standards to which reasoning should conform We must beware of supposing that the principles of correct reasoning, say in mathematics, hold good for other subject matters, say chemistry This would be like supposing that all languages really have the same grammar Believing that, one might be tempted to argue, for example, that English nouns really do have case endings, but that these are implicit, or understood But it would be just as reasonable an alternative to ask oneself whether perhaps the application of the grammatical category 'case to Eng- lish nouns is misplaced In this book I shall make no assumptions whatever about the transferability of principles of logic from one field to another In particular I shall not assume that the logical
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