The Metaphysics of Science-1 : An Account of Modern Science in Terms of Principles, Laws and Theories /
The roots of this work lie in my earlier book, Scientific Progress, which first appeared in 1981. One of its topics, the distinction - tween scientific laws and theories, is there treated with reference to the same distinction as drawn by N. R. Campbell in his Physics: The Elements. Shortly after co...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Dordrecht :
Springer Netherlands,
2006.
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| Series: | Boston Studies in The Philosophy of Science ;
v. 173. |
| Subjects: | |
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| Summary: | The roots of this work lie in my earlier book, Scientific Progress, which first appeared in 1981. One of its topics, the distinction - tween scientific laws and theories, is there treated with reference to the same distinction as drawn by N. R. Campbell in his Physics: The Elements. Shortly after completing Scientific Progress, I read Rom Harré’s The Principles of Scientific Thinking, in which the concept of theory is even more clearly delineated than in Campbell, being directly connected to the notion of a model – as it was in my book. In subsequent considerations regarding science, Harré’s work thus - came my main source of inspiration with regard to theories, while Campbell’s remained my main source with respect to empirical laws. Around the same time I also read William Whewell’s Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. In this work, Whewell depicts principles as playing a central role in the formation of science, and conceives of them in much the same way as Kant conceives of fundamental synthetic a priori judgements. The idea that science should have principles as a basic element immediately made sense to me, and from that time I have thought of science in terms of laws, theories and principles. |
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| Physical Description: | XVI, 333 p. online resource. |
| ISBN: | 9781402038389 9781402038372 |
| ISSN: | 0068-0346 ; |