Abstract
The major philosophical points I wish to make in this essay are not fully original, although I hope that what I have to say makes a coherent and persuasive whole. I shall be discussing a predominating philosophy of science that has held the field against most other systematic philosophies of science for at least five decades. Sometimes this philosophy has been called “Neo-Positivism,” (in part to distinguish it from the nineteenth-century positivism of Comte) sometimes, “Logical Empiricism.” It shares much with the early “Logical Positivism” of Schlick and other members of the Vienna Circle — a sophisticated philosophical position not to be confused with the positivism of Ayer’s shallow Language, Truth and Logic — but for many advocates the historical roots lie elsewhere. The labels are not that important, especially since every essential ingredient of the philosophy of science I shall be discussing is to be found in much earlier, diverse philosophies. It is important, however, to pause and consider this historical situation. There are many twentieth-century philosophers who think that philosophy is an autonomous discipline whose history can be ignored; some contemporary philosophers regard philosophy of science as having come into existence only in this century, or maybe in the late nineteenth century.
[Previously published in Basic Issues in the Philosophy of Science, William R. Shea (ed), (New York: Science History Publications, 1976), pp. 36–57.]
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Butts, Robert E., “Feyerabend and the Pragmatic Theory of Observation,” Philosophy of Science, XXXIII, 4 (1966).
Butts, Robert E., William Whewell’s Theory of Scientific Method, ed., (Pittsburgh 1968).
Carnap, Rudolf “Testability and Meaning,” Philosophy of Science, 3 (1936) 4 (1937).
Carnap, Rudolf, “Foundations of Logic and Mathematics,” 1,3, International Encyclopedia of Unified Science (Chicago 1939).
Duhem, Pierre, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, trans. P.P. Wiener (New York 1962).
Feyerabend, Paul, “Problems of Empiricism I,” Beyond the Edge of Certainty, ed., R. Colodny (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1965).
Goodman, Nelson, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis 1965).
Grunbaum, Adolf, Philosophical Problems ofSpace and Time, 2nd ed. (Dordrecht, Holland 1973).
Hempel, Carl, Philosophy of Natural Science, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1966).
Hempel, Carl, Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science, (New York & London 1965).
Lewis, C.I., Mind and the World Order, (New York 1956).
Nagel, Ernest, The Structure of Science, (New York & Burlingame 1961).
Popper, Karl, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, (New York 1959).
Quine, W.V., From a Logical Point of View, (Cambridge, Mass. 1953).
Salmon, Wesley, “The Foundations of Scientific Inference,” Mind and Cosmos, ed., R. Colodny (Pittsburgh 1966).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Solomon, G. (2000). The Hypothetico-Deductive Model of Scientific Theories: A Sympathetic Disclaimer. In: Solomon, G. (eds) Witches, Scientists, Philosophers: Essays and Lectures. The Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol 65. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9504-9_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9504-9_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5577-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9504-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive