Abstract
A scientific theory can make contact with experience in at least three ways: (a) it can be tested for factual truth by means of experience (observation, measurement or experiment); (b) it can be used to plan and interpret observations, measurements or experiments; (c) it can be employed to practical (noncognitive) ends such as making an artifact or destroying it. We shall deal here with the first two kinds of contact and shall approach the problem from a general methodological point of view without getting involved in the technicalities of statistical inference and experiment design: our purpose will be primarily philosophical, namely to stress the intimate interlocking of theory and experience, that refutes the claim that either of the two poles is overriding.
Some paragraphs are reproduced from Bunge (1970d) with the permission of the editor and publisher.
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© 1973 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Bunge, M. (1973). The Theory/Experiment Interface. In: Philosophy of Physics. Synthese Library, vol 45. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2522-5_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2522-5_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-2524-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-2522-5
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