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Philosophy of science in Canada

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Summary

A report on work in philosophy of science in Canada, especially surveying recent and on-going work in philosophy of physics, philosophy of biology, philosophy of the social sciences, philosophical logic (including studies in probability theory and foundations of mathematics), general problems in the methodology of science, and ancillary professional activities of Canadian philosophers of science.

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Literatur-Verzeichnis

  1. See J. A. Irving, Ed.,Philosophy in Canada: A Symposium, (University of Toronto Press, 1952); and Carl F. Klinck, Gen. Ed.,Literary History of Canada, chs. 23, 24, 30 (University of Toronto Press, 1965). References given in this essay will be selective and incomplete. In the bibliography of works in philosophy of science in Canada, to be published later in this Journal, an attempt will be made to give the most complete coverage possible.

  2. See for example, hisAlfred North Whitehead: The Interpretation of Science (1961); andWhitehead's Theory of Reality, appendix A, 1952 (revised 1962).

  3. Foundations of Physics; Scientific Research, both published in 1967;Philosophy of Physics; Method, Model and Matter, both published in 1973.

  4. See, for example, his “The Nature of Quantum Mechanical Reality: Einstein vs. Bohr”,Paradox and Paradigm, Pittsburgh Studies in the Philosophy of Science, ed. R. Colodny, Vol. V, 1972; and “Physics and Metaphysics: a Prolegomena of the Riddles of Quantum Theory”,Contemporary Research in the Foundations and Philosophy of Quantum Theory, ed. C. A. Hooker (Reidel 1973).

  5. “The Crisis in Philosophical Semantics”,Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Ed. M. Radner and S. Winokur, IV, 1970.

  6. London: Hutchinson University Press, 1973.

  7. “Functional Explanations in Biology”,Philosophy of Science (1965); “Are Biological Species Real”,Philosophy of Science (1967).

  8. “La théorie de l'évolution et son influence sur notre conception da l'univers”, conference paper read before the Faculty of Engineering, University of Sherbrooke, 1970; “L'épistémologie génétique de Piaget et la problème de la causalité”, forthcoming inDialogue.

  9. “Understanding in the Social Sciences Revisited”,Inquiry, 12, 1969.

  10. “Explanation and Value Neutrality”,British Journal for Philosophy of Science, 9, 1968; “Historical Objectivity and Value Neutrality”,Inquiry, 12, 1968.

  11. University of Toronto Press, 1973.

  12. “Four Contemporary Interpretations of the Nature of Science”,Foundations of Physics, 1971; “Science versus the Scientific Revolution”,Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 1, 1971; “Observation as the Building Blocks of Science in 20th-Century Scientific Thought”,Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, VIII, 1972.

  13. “Is Technology Unnatural?”The Listener, 77, 1967; “On the Theory of Fieldwork and the Scientific Character of Social Anthropology”,Philosophy of Science, 34, 1967;Concepts and Society (London, 1972).

  14. “Action Theory as the Foundation for the Sciences of Man”,Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 3, 1973.

  15. “De l'idéologie et de ses rapports avec las question des sciences de l'homme”, Congrès de l'Association Canadienne de Philosophie, Montréal, Université McGill, juin 1972 (texte à paraître dansThe Human Context).

  16. La philosophie sociale de Bergson, Sources et interprétation, Collection Philosophica, Editions de l'Université d'Ottawa, 1973; “Philosophie et Sociologie chez Durkheim”,La Revue de l'Université d'Ottawa, mars 1969.

  17. New York, Macmillan. See “Vincula Vindicata”,Mind, April 1957; “Vincula Revindicata” (with Alexander Rosenberg), to appear inCausation and Scientific Law, ed. Tom Beauchamp (Dickenson).

  18. “The Nomological Character of Microeconomics”,Theory and Decision, forthcoming; “Partial Interpretation and Microeconomics”, in Leinfellner and Köhler,Theory and Decision Library, forthcoming.

  19. American Elsevier, 1973. Michalos has also writtenThe Popper-Carnap Controversy (Nijhoff, 1971) and a variety of articles.

  20. New York and London, 1971.

  21. In G. Pearce and P. Maynard, eds.,Conceptual Change (Reidel 1973).

  22. In the work referred to in note 24.

  23. Peter Martin Associates, 1973.

  24. “Sortal Quantification and Restricted Quantification”,Philosophical Studies, 23, 6 (Dec. 1972).

  25. “Semantics and Aletheia”,Philosophical Forum (Boston), 1, 1969; “Structures of Efficacy”, University of Western Ontario Workshop in Semantics and Linguistics, 1972. Although Prof. Vendler no longer works in Canada, it seems appropriate to include work done while here.

  26. “Pronouns, Primacy and Falsification in Linguistics”,Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 1973; “Two Dogmas of Linguistic Expression”,Dialogue, 1972.

  27. “Hypothesis Generation by Machine”,Artificial Intelligence, 2 (1971); “On Two Proposed Models of Explanation”,Philosophy of Science, 40 (1973); “Truth, Falsehood, and Contingency in First-Order Predicate Calculus”,Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 14 (1973).

  28. “Linguistic Butter and Philosophical Parsnips”,Journal of Philosophy 64 (1967); “What Exactlyis English?”Journal of Philosophical Logic, 1, 2 (1972).

  29. “Bergström's Utilitarian Objection to T1”,Theoria, 3 (1972); “The Next Best Thing”,Logique et Analyse, forthcoming.

  30. Harper's work is in progress; van Fraassen's will appear in his forthcoming “Probabilities of Conditionals”. This important work on conditionals connects intimately with Bub's work on non-classical conditional probability structure in quantum mechanics. See his important, “On the Completeness of Quantum Mechanics”,Contemporary Research in the Foundations and Philosophy of Quantum Theory, ed. C. A. Hooker (Reidel 1973). In the notes references will be found to Bub's earlier works on quantum theory.

  31. “Queer Arithmetic”,Australasian Journal of Philosophy (1970); “Are Mathematical Existence Propositions Unique”?Philosophia Mathematica 10, 1 (1973).

  32. “La logique des sciences sociales”,Dialogue VL, 4 (1968); “Theory of Science and Metatheoretics”,Science et Esprit, XXIII (1971); “The Use of the Axiomatic Method in Quantum Logics”,Philosophy of Science, 38 (1971).

  33. “New Dimensions of Confirmation Theory”,Philosophλ of Science, 35 (1968); “New Dimensions of Confirmation Theory II: the Structure of Uncertainty”,Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, ed. R. Buck and R. Cohen; VIII (1972); “Scientific Inference: the Myth and the Reality”,Science, Psychology and Communication, ed. S. Brown, D. Brenner (Teachers College Press, 1972).

  34. “Whewell's Logic of Induction”,Foundations of Scientific Method: the Nineteenth Century, ed. R. Giere and R. Westfall (Indiana 1973); “Consilience of Inductions and the Problem of Conceptual Change in Science”, University of Pittsburgh Lecture Series in Philosophy of Science (1971), forthcoming in the next volume in this series.

  35. Norman Swartz, “Can the Theory of the Contingent Identity between Sensation-states and Brain-states be Made Empirical?”Canadian Journal of Philosophy, forthcoming. John Kekes, “Physicalism, the Identity Theory, and the Doctrine of Emergence”,Philosophy of Science 33 (1966); “Theoretical Identity”,The Southern Journal of Philosophy 8 (1970).

  36. “Is Operationalism Unjust to Temperature?”Synthese 10 (1968); “Dispositions: Defined or Reduced”,Australasian Journal of Philosophy 47, (1969); “Acquaintance, Ontology and Knowledge”,New Scholasticism 44 (1970).

  37. John Kekes, “Fallibilism and Rationality”,American Philosophical Quarterly 9 (1972); T. Settle, “The Point of Positive Evidence — Reply to Professor Feyerabend”,British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 20 (1969); “Confirmation as a Probability: Dead but it won't lie down!”British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 21 (1970); “Induction and Probability Unfused”, Philosophy of Karl R. Popper, ed. P. A. Schilpp (Library of Living Philosophers), forthcoming; Jerzy Wojciechowski, “The Analytic Philosopher's View of Science”,Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, XXXIV (1960); “Measurement and Understanding”,Revue de l'Université d'Ottawa 32, 2 (1962); “L'unite de la science”,Dialogue II, 3 (1963).

  38. Settle's paper is noted in 41. above. See C. A. Hooker, “Critical Notice: Against Method, P. K. Feyerabend”,Canadian Journal of Philosophy 1 (1972); R. E. Butts, “Feyerabend and the Pragmatic Theory of Observation”,Philosophy of Science 33, 4 (1966).

  39. “Alternatives and Incommensurables: the Case of Darwin and Kelvin”,Philosophy of Science (1970); “The Importance of Auxiliary Hypotheses”,Ratio, forthcoming.

  40. In addition to Professor Drake's translations of Galileo, one should note his “J. B. Stallo and the Critique of Classical Physics”,Men and Moments in the History of Science (Seattle 1959), and his articles,Galileo Galilei andJohn Bernard Stallo inEncyclopedia of Philosophy (New. York 1967). Professor Klibansky has edited and written introductions for:Philosophy in the Mid-Century. A Survey, Vol. I.Logic and Philosophy of Science (Firenze 1958, 1961, 1967);Contemporary Philosophy. A Survey, Vol. ILogic and Foundations of Mathematics (Firenze 1968); andContemporary Philosophy. A Survey, Vol. II.Philosophy of Science (Firenze 1968). In addition he has written important scholarly works on Copernicus, The School of Chartres, and the Platonic tradition in the Middle Ages.

  41. “La philosophie médicale de Sydenham”,Dialogue, IX (1970); “Locke et le savoir de probabilité”,Dialogue, XI (1972);L'empirisme de Locke (Nijhoff 1973).

  42. London and New York: Science History Publications, 1972. An Italian edition of this work will be published in Florence by Sansoni Editore. In addition to his extensive work on Galileo, Shea has written on topics in contemporary philosophy of science: see his “Beyond Logical Empiricism”,Dialogue, 10 (1971), and “The Classification of Scientific Terms as ‘Theoretical’ and ‘Observational’ in Contemporary Philosophy of Science”, forthcoming inActs of the First Ottawa Conference on the Conceptual Basis of the Classification of Knowledge.

  43. Butts has contributed two papers on Kant's views on hypotheses toArchiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 43, 2 (1961); 44, 2 (1962), and “Kant's Schemata as Semantical Rules”,Kant Studies Today, ed. L. W. Beck (Open Court 1969). A paper on Kant's systematization of Galileo's program, “Experience and Experiment as Regulative Principles in Methodology”, was read at the First International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science, Jyväskylä, Finland, in July 1973, and will appear inBoston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. His work on Whewell includes an edited selection of his writings:William Whewell's Theory of Scientific Method (Pittsburgh 1968), and a number of papers, including, “Necessary Truth in Whewell's Theory of Science”,American Philosophical Quarterly, 2, 3 (1965), and “Whewell on Newton's Rules of Philosophizing”,The Methodological Heritage of Newton, ed. R. Butts and J. Davis (Toronto and Oxford 1970).

  44. “Ockham on Mental”,Mind, LXXIX (1970); “The Upsala School and the New Logic”,Journal of the History of Ideas, XXVIII (1967); “Predication and Universals in Vincent Ferrer's Logic”,Franciscan Studies, 28 (1968).

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  1. Department of Philosophy, The University of Western Ontario, N6A 3K7, London 72, Ontario, Canada

    Robert E. Butts

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Butts, R.E. Philosophy of science in Canada. Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 5, 341–358 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01801746

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