Models and Methods in the Philosophy of Science: Selected Essays

Front Cover
Springer Science & Business Media, May 31, 1993 - Mathematics - 510 pages
The thirty-one papers collected in this volume represent most of the arti cles that I have published in the philosophy of science and related founda tional areas of science since 1970. The present volume is a natural succes sor to Studies in the Methodology and Foundations of Science, a collection of my articles published in 1969 by Reidel (now a part of Kluwer). The articles are arranged under five main headings. Part I contains six articles on general methodology. The topics range from formal methods to the plurality of science. Part II contains six articles on causality and explanation. The emphasis is almost entirely on probabilistic approaches. Part III contains six articles on probability and measurement. The impor tance of representation theorems for both probability and measurement is stressed. Part IV contains five articles on the foundations of physics. The first three articles are concerned with action at a distance and space and time, the last two with quantum mechanics. Part V contains eight articles on the foundations of psychology. This is the longest part and the articles reflect my continuing strong interest in the nature of learning and perception. Within each part the articles are arranged chronologically. I turn now to a more detailed overview of the content. The first article of Part I concerns the role of formal methods in the philosophy of science. Here I discuss what is the new role for formal methods now that the imperialism of logical positivism has disappeared.
 

Contents

THE ROLE OF FORMAL METHODS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
3
2 VARIETY OF FORMAL METHODS
5
3 VARIETY OF OPEN PROBLEMS
8
4 FINAL REMARK ON HISTORICAL AND FORMAL METHODS
13
THE STUDY OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
15
1 THEORY
16
2 METHODOLOGY
21
LIMITATIONS OF THE AXIOMATIC METHOD IN ANCIENT GREEK MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES
25
ARGUMENTS FOR RANDOMIZING
213
2 COMMUNICATION
218
3 CAUSAL INFERENCES
220
4 COMPLEXITY
223
PROPENSITY REPRESENTATIONS OF PROBABILITY
225
1 PROPENSITY TO DECAY
227
2 PROPENSITY TO RESPOND
235
3 PROPENSITY FOR HEADS
238

1 EUCLIDS OPTICS
26
2 ARCHIMEDES ON THE EQUILIBRIUM OF PLANES
27
3 PTOLEMYS ALMAGEST
38
4 CONCLUDING REMARKS
39
THE PLURALITY OF SCIENCE
41
2 UNITY AND REDUCTIONISM
43
3 THE SEARCH FOR CERTAINTY
48
4 THE SEARCH FOR COMPLETENESS
50
HEURISTICS AND THE AXIOMATIC METHOD
55
2 HEURISTIC VERSUS NONHEURISTIC AXIOMS
58
3 AXIOMATIC ANALYSIS OF QUALITATIVE DERIVATIONS
62
4 CONCLUDING REMARK ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN HEURISTICS AND AXIOMATICS
63
REPRESENTATION THEORY AND THE ANALYSIS OF STRUCTURE
67
1 ISOMORPHISM OF MODELS
70
2 REPRESENTATION THEOREMS
73
3 INVARIANCE AND MEANINGFULNESS
78
CAUSALITY AND EXPLANATION
83
CAUSAL ANALYSIS OF HIDDEN VARIABLES
85
1 DETERMINISTIC CAUSES
87
3 EXCHANGEABILITY IN THE SPIN EXPERIMENTS
89
4 PROBLEM OF MORE THAN TWO EXCHANGEABLE VARIABLES
91
6 CAUSAL HIDDEN VARIABLES WITHOUT CONDITIONAL INDEPENDENCE
92
SCIENTIFIC CAUSAL TALK
95
2 SET THEORY IN SCIENCE
96
3 LANGUAGE OF EVENTS
98
4 INTENSIONALITY AND PROCEDURAL SEMANTICS
100
5 APPENDIX
101
EXPLAINING THE UNPREDICTABLE
111
CONFLICTING INTUITIONS ABOUT CAUSALITY
121
1 SIMPSONS PARADOX
124
2 MACROSCOPIC DETERMINISM
126
3 TYPES AND TOKENS
128
4 PHYSICAL FLOW OF CAUSES
131
5 COMMON CAUSES
134
6 EXCHANGEABILITY
138
WHEN ARE PROBABILISTIC EXPLANATIONS POSSIBLE?
141
NONMARKOVIAN CAUSALITY IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES WITH SOME THEOREMS ON TRANSITIVITY
149
1 TRANSITIVITY OF NONMARKOVIAN CAUSES
151
2 NONMARKOVIAN LEARNING MODELS
155
3 ECONOMETRICS
157
PROBABILITY AND MEASUREMENT
161
FINITE EQUALINTERVAL MEASUREMENT STRUCTURES
163
1 EXTENSIVE MEASUREMENT
164
2 DIFFERENCE MEASUREMENT
166
3 BISECTION MEASUREMENT
168
4 CONJOINT MEASUREMENT
170
5 PROOFS
172
THE MEASUREMENT OF BELIEF
181
2 WEAKNESSES OF THE STANDARD THEORIES
182
3 INEXACT MEASUREMENT
189
4 COMPARISON WITH GEOMETRY
196
5 FINAL REMARK
200
THE LOGIC OF CLINICAL JUDGMENT BAYESIAN AND OTHER APPROACHES
201
1 PROBABILITY
202
2 EVALUATION OF CONSEQUENCES
205
3 MODELS
208
4 DATA ANALYSIS
209
4 PROPENSITY FOR RANDOMNESS
243
INDETERMINISM OR INSTABILITY DOES IT MATTER?
247
2 HOW TO SAVE DETERMINISM
250
3 CHAOS AND SYMBOLIC DYNAMICS
251
4 THE TROUBLESOME CASE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS
254
5 RANDOMNESS AS A LIMITING CASE OF UNSTABLE DETERMINISM
255
PHYSICS
259
DESCARTES AND THE PROBLEM OF ACTION AT A DISTANCE
261
2 THE A PRIORI AND THE HYPOTHETICAL FOR DESCARTES
263
3 CRITICAL REMARKS
266
SOME OPEN PROBLEMS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPACE AND TIME
271
1 GEOMETRY OF SPACE
273
2 PHYSICAL SPACE AND SPACETIME
278
ARISTOTLES CONCEPT OF MATTER AND ITS RELATION TO MODERN CONCEPTS OF MATTER
289
1 CENTRAL FEATURES OF ARISTOTLES DOCTRINE
290
2 MODERN SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS OF MATTER
295
DESCARTES BOSCOVICH AND KANT
298
4 SCIENTIFIC RECONSTRUCTION OF ARISTOTLES CONCEPT OF MATTER
306
POPPERS ANALYSIS OF PROBABILITY IN QUANTUM MECHANICS
311
2 QUANTUM MECHANICS AS A STATISTICAL THEORY
320
PROBABILISTIC CAUSALITY IN QUANTUM MECHANICS
327
2 SOME EXAMPLES
329
3 STOCHASTIC EXTENSIONS OF QUANTUM MECHANICS
331
4 LOCALITY
333
PSYCHOLOGY
339
FROM BEHAVIORISM TO NEOBEHAVIORISM
341
REINFORCEMENT
343
3 LEARNING PARTIAL RECURSIVE FUNCTIONS
348
4 CHOOSING THE HIERARCHY OF PROBLEMS
351
5 PROBLEMS OF PREDICTION
354
LEARNING THEORY FOR PROBABILISTIC AUTOMATA AND REGISTER MACHINES WITH APPLICATIONS TO EDUCATIONAL RESEAR...
357
2 APPLICATIONS
365
IS VISUAL SPACE EUCLIDEAN?
373
2 THE HIERARCHY OF GEOMETRIES
378
3 EXPERIMENTAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANSWERS
380
4 SOME REMARKS ON THE ISSUES
390
DAVIDSONS VIEWS ON PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE
395
CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN MATHEMATICAL LEARNING THEORY
407
2 LEARNING THEORY FOR UNIVERSAL COMPUTATION
422
ON DERIVING MODELS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
435
1 MEASUREMENT REPRESENTATIONS
436
2 REGRESSIONTYPE MODELS
439
3 NONMARKOVIAN OBSERVABLE MODELS WITH PROCESS ASSUMPTIONS
440
4 MARKOV MODELS WITH UNOBSERVABLE THEORETICAL VARIABLES
442
5 CONTINUOUS MODELS
445
6 SOME GENERAL ISSUES
447
THE PRINCIPLE OF INVARIANCE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PERCEPTION
451
IN ORDINARY LANGUAGE
453
2 GEOMETRY OF VISUAL SPACE
462
CAN PSYCHOLOGICAL SOFTWARE BE REDUCED TO PHYSIOLOGICAL HARDWARE?
471
2 GOALORIENTED BEHAVIOR
474
3 COMPUTATIONAL IRREDUCIBILITY
476
4 IRRELEVANCE OF PHYSICAL DETERMINISM
479
BIBLIOGRAPHY
483
AUTHOR INDEX
509
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