Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T04:42:18.098Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Truth of Scientific Claims

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Edward MacKinnon
Edward MacKinnon*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, California State University, Hayward
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The idea that science aspires to and routinely achieves truths about the world has been challenged in recent writings. Rather than beginning with a theory of scientific development, or of scientific explanation, we begin with a consideration of truth claims in ordinary discourse, particularly with Davidson's truth-functional semantics. Next we consider the way in which some framework features of ordinary language discourse are extended to and modified in scientific discourse. Two areas are treated in more detail: quantum theory, and the peculiar problem of semantic entailment it involves; and quantum field theory. These supply a basis for criticizing some historicist and logicist treatments of the truth of scientific claims.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , September 1982 , pp. 437 - 462
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Chernavska, Ariadna (1981), “The Impossibility of a Bivalent Truth-Functional Semantics for the Non-Boolean Prepositional Structures of Quantum Mechanics”, Philosophia 10: 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Close, F. E. (1979), An Introduction to Quarks and Partons. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cushing, James T. (1975), Applied Analytical Mathematics for Physical Scientists. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Cushing, James T. (forthcoming), “Models and Methodologies in Current Theoretical High-Energy Physics”, Synthese.Google Scholar
Darden, Lindley (forthcoming), “Theory Construction in Classical Genetics: The Anatomy of the Theory and Constraints on its Modification.” PSA 1980: Volume Two. East Lansing, Michigan: Philosophy of Science Association.Google Scholar
Davidson, Donald (1973), “Radical Interpretation”, Dialectica 27: 313–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Donald (1974a), “Belief and the Basis of Meaning”, Synthese 27: 309–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Donald (1974b), “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme”, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 47: 5–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Donald (1975a) “Thought and Talk”, in Guttenplan, Samuel (ed.), Mind and Language: Wolfson College Lectures 1974. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 7–23.Google Scholar
Davidson, Donald (1975b), “Reality Without Reference”, Dialectica 31: 248–258.Google Scholar
Davidson, Donald (1977), “The Method of Truth in Metaphysics”, Midwest Studies in Philosophy 2: 244–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
d'Espagnat, Bernard (1979), “The Quantum Theory and Reality”, Scientific American 241: 158–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gell-Mann, Murray (1964), “The Eightfold Way: A Theory of Strong Interaction Symmetry”, in Gell-Mann, M. and Ne'eman, Y., The Eightfold Way. New York: W. A. Benjamin, pp. 11–57.Google Scholar
Georgi, Howard and Glashow, Sheldon L. (1980), “Unified Theory of Elementary-Particle Forces”, Physics Today 33: 30–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, W. M., and Pollard, B. R. (1976), Symmetry Principles in Elementary Particle Physics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Glashow, Sheldon Lee (1975), “Quarks with Color and Flavor”, Scientific American 233: 38–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glashow, Sheldon Lee (1980), “Towards a Unified Theory: Threads in a Tapestry” (Nobel Prize Address), Reviews of Modern Physics 52: 539–543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldhaber, M., Langacker, P., and Slansky, R. (1980), “Is the Proton Stable?” Science 210: 851–860.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grice, H. P. (1957), “Meaning”, The Philosophical Review 66: 377–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1969), “Utterer's Meaning and Intentions”, The Philosophical Review 78: 147–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutting, Gary (1980), “Review of Laudan (1977)”, Erkenntnis 15: 91–103.Google Scholar
Harré, Rom (1970), The Principles of Scientific Thinking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Houtappel, R. M. F., Van Dam, H., and Wigner, E. P. (1965), “The Conceptual Basis and Use of the Geometic Invariance Principles”, Reviews of Modern Physics 37: 595–632.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kyburg, Henry E. (1968), Philosophy of Science: A Formal Approach. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Joseph, Geoffrey (1980), “The Many Sciences and the One World”, The Journal of Philosophy 77: 773–791.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark (1980), “Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language”, The Journal of Philosophy 77: 453–486.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laudan, Larry (1977), Progress and Its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Leblanc, Hugues (1973), “Semantic Deviations”, in Leblanc, Hugues (ed.), Truth, Syntax and Modality. Amsterdam: North-Holland, pp. 1–16.Google Scholar
Lurie, David (1968), Particles and Fields. New York: Interscience.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Edward (1972), “Theoretical Entities and Metatheories”, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 3: 105–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKinnon, Edward (1974), “Ontic Commitments of Quantum Mechanics”, Boston Studies in the Philsophy of Science, Vol. 13: 255–308.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Edward (1975), “A Reinterpretation of Harré's Copernical Revolution”, Philosophy of Science 42: 67–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKinnon, Edward (1979), “Scientific Realism: The New Debates”, Philosophy of Science 46: 501–532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKinnon, Edward (1981), “The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: A Critical Review”, Philosophia 10: 89–124.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Edward (forthcoming a), “Neils Bohr on the Unity of Science”, PSA 1980 Volume Two. East Lansing, Michigan: The Philosophy of Science Association.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Edward (forthcoming b), Scientific Explanation and Atomic Physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Edward (forthcoming c), “Atomic Physics: Test Case for Theory Reconstruction”, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science.Google Scholar
Mandelbaum, M. (1979), “Subjective, Objective, and Conceptual Relativisms”, The Monist 62: 403–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMullin, Ernan (1979), “Discussion Review: Laudan's Progress and its Problems”, Philosophy of Science 46: 623–644.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMullin, Ernan (forthcoming), “The Fertility of Theories and the Unit for Appraisal in Science.”Google Scholar
Mellor, Hugh (1978), “Some Problems about Problem Solving”, in PSA 1978 Volume Two. East Lansing, Michigan: Philosophy of Science Association.Google Scholar
Nickles, Thomas (1978), “Scientific Problems and Constraints”, PSA 1978: Volume One. East Lansing, Michigan: Philosophy of Science Association, pp. 134–148.Google Scholar
Nishijima, K. (1969), Fields and Particles: Field Theory and Dispersion Relations. New York: W. A. Benjamin.Google Scholar
Pitcher, George (1964), Truth. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Putnam, H. (1975), Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, H. (1977), “Realism and Reason”, in Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 50: 483–498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, H. (forthcoming), The Transcendence of Reason: The Howison Lecutres 1981. Lecture One.Google Scholar
Roman, Paul (1969), Introduction to Quantum Field Theory. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Rosner, Jonathan L. (1980), ’ ‘Resource Letter NP-1: New Particles”, The American Journal of Physics 48: 90–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryder, Lewis (1975), Elementary Particles and Symmetries. New York: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar
Salam, Abdus (1980), “Gauge Unification of Fundamental Forces” (Nobel Prize address), Reviews of Modern Physics 52: 525–538.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwinger, Julian (1964), “Field Theory of Particles”, in Brandeis Summer Institute in Theoretical Physics. 1964. Vol. Two. Lectures on Particles and Field Theory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, pp. 147–288.Google Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid (1963), Science, Perception and Reality. New York: The Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid (1968), Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes. New York: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Shapere, Dudley (1974), “Scientific Theories and their Domains”, in Suppe, F. (ed.), The Structure of Scientific Theories. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 518–599.Google Scholar
Shrader-Frechette, K. (1977), “Atomism in Crisis: An Analysis of the Current High Energy Paradigm”, Philosophy of Science 44: 409–440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sklar, Lawrence (1980), “Semantic Analogy”, Philosophical Studies 38: 217–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snell, B. (1953), The Discovery of the Mind. Trans. by Rosenmayer, T. G. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, Robert (1973), “Presuppositions”, Journal of Philosophical Logic 2: 447–457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strawson, P. F. (1952), Introduction to Logical Theory. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Strawson, P. F. (1959), Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Strawson, P. F. (1964), “Truth”, in Pitcher, G. (ed.), Truth. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, pp. 32–53.Google Scholar
Strawson, P. F. (1964), “A Problem About Truth—A Reply to Mr. Warnock”, in Pitcher, G. (ed.), Truth. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, pp. 68–84.Google Scholar
't Hooft, Gerard (1980), “Gauge Theory of the Forces Between Elementary Particles”, Scientific American 242: 104–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, B. (1972), “A Formal Approach to the Philosophy of Science”, in Colodny, R. (ed.), Paradigms and Paradoxes: The Philosophical Challenge of the Quantum Domain. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, B. (1973), “Semantic Analysis of Quantum Logic”, in Hooker, C. (ed.), Contemporary Research in the Foundations and Philosophy of Quantum Theory. Dordrecht-Holland: Reidel, pp. 80–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Visconti, A (1969), Quantum Field Theory, Volume I, trans. Bacry, H. and Hancock, C. M. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Weinberg, Steven (1972), Gravitation and Cosmology. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Weinberg, Steven (1980), “Conceptual Foundations of the Unified Theory of Weak and Electromagnetic Interactions” (Nobel Prize Lecture), Reviews of Modern Physics 52: 515–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar