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Presentations and the Status of Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

James Griesemer
James Griesemer*
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
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Extract

Accounts of the structure of scientific theories in twentieth century philosophy of science have tended to focus on epistemological questions to the near exclusion of the metaphysical consequences of their solutions. This emphasis can be understood as resulting from the interest and concerns of the logical positivist movement and continued by proponents of the so-called “received view” of theories (Suppe 1977). One area where this division of interest has been a barrier to progress is understanding the growth of scientific knowledge.

While philosophers as diverse as Nagel, Hempel, Kuhn, and Lakatos have attempted to explain the historical course of science, they have largely built their views on foundations designed to explicate the relation between theories (paradigms, scientific research programs) and the world. Thus, the received view's model of progress via theory (or indeed, whole science) reduction (e.g., Nagel 1961) rests on its largely syntactic/logical account of theory structure.

Type
Part IV. Laws and Theories
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1984 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1984 , 1984 , pp. 102 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1984

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Footnotes

1

I thank John Damuth, G. J. Mattey and the reviewers for helpful discussions and correcting a number of mistakes. I hope the mistakes remaining are the fruitful ones.

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