Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science: A History (Third Edition). Thomas J. Hickey
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the discourse in philosophy of science is in the metalinguistic perspective. Important metalinguistic terms include “theory”, “law”, “test design”, “observation report” and “explanation”, which are classifications of language. The computer instructions coded in discovery systems are also metalinguistic expressions, because these systems input, process and output object language for the sciences.
1.04 Dimensions of Language
Using the metalinguistic perspective, philosophers analyze language into what Rudolf Carnap called “dimensions” of language. They are syntax, semantics, ontology, and pragmatics.
Syntax refers to the structure of language. Arrangements of syntactical symbols such as linguistic ink marks on paper display syntactical structure. Examples of syntactical symbols include terms such as words and mathematical variables and the sentences and mathematical equations constructed with the terms.
Syntactical rules regulate construction of grammatical expressions such as sentences and equations usually arranged by concatenation into strings of terms.
Semantics refers to the meanings associated with syntactical symbols. Syntax without semantics is systematic but literally meaningless. Adding meanings to the symbols makes the syntax “semantically interpreted”.
Semantical rules describe the meanings associated with elementary syntactical symbols. In the metalinguistic perspective belief in the truth of semantically interpreted universally quantified sentences such as the stereotypic “Every raven is black” enables the sentences to function as semantical rules displaying the complex meanings of their component descriptive terms. Belief in the statement “Every raven is black” makes the phrase “black raven” redundant, thus displaying the meaning of “black” as a component part of the meaning of “raven”. The lexical entries in a unilingual dictionary exemplify an inventory of the semantical rules for a language.
Ontology refers to the aspects of reality described by semantically interpreted sentences believed to be true, especially belief due to experience or systematic empirical testing. This is the thesis of ontological relativity. Ontology is typically of greater interest to philosophers than to linguists.
Semantics is knowledge of reality; ontology is reality as known.
Semantics is the perspectivist signification of reality; ontology is the aspects of reality signified by semantics. Ontology is the aspect of mind-independent reality that is cognitively captured by the perspective revealed by the semantics.
Not all discourses are equally realistic; they are as realistic as they are empirically adequate. And since all semantics is relativized and ultimately comes from sense stimuli, there is no semantically interpreted syntax of language that is utterly devoid of any associated ontology.
Pragmatics in philosophy of science refers to how scientists use language, namely to create and test theories, and thereby develop scientific laws used in test designs for future testing and in scientific explanations of events.
1.05 Classification of Functional Topics
Basic-science research practices can be classified into four topics that include the essential functions performed in basic research. They are also topics typically discussed in the literature of philosophy of science.
The institutionalized aim of basic science is the culturally shared aim that guides development of explanations, which in turn are the final products of basic-scientific research. The institution of science has evolved considerably over the last several centuries, and will continue to evolve in unforeseeable ways with the future advancement of science.
Discovery refers to the processes of constructing new theories. Pragmatists define theory language pragmatically, i.e., functionally, as universally quantified statements expressible in conditional form including equations (a.k.a. “models”) that are proposed for empirical testing.
Theories are universally quantified hypotheses proposed for empirical testing.
Criticism refers to the decision criteria used for the evaluation of theories. Pragmatists accept only the empirical criterion. Empirical testing is the pragmatics of theory language, and it uses modus tollens conditional deductive argument form. A scientific law is an empirically tested and nonfalsified theory.
Test-designs are universally quantified discourse presumed for empirical testing a theory, in order to identify the subject of the theory and to describe the procedures for performing the test.
Explanation is language that describes the occurrence of individual events and conditions as caused by the occurrence of other described events and conditions according to law statements. It uses modus ponens conditional deductive argument form, which includes universally quantified statements expressible in conditional form that are scientific laws. Whenever possible the explanation is predictive.
1.06 Classification of Modern Philosophies
Twentieth-century philosophies of science may be classified into three generic types. They are romanticism, positivism and contemporary pragmatism. Each type has many representative authors advocating philosophies expressing similar concepts for such metalinguistic terms as “theory”, “law” and “explanation”. Philosophies within each generic classification have their differences, but are much more similar to each other than to those in different classifications.
Romanticism is a philosophy for the social sciences. Positivism and pragmatism is a general philosophy of science for all the empirical sciences. Positivism is based on Newtonian physics, while pragmatism is based on modern quantum physics.
Chapter 2. Modern Philosophies
This chapter sketches three generic types of twentieth-century philosophy of science in terms of the four functional topics. Philosophy of language will be taken up in Chapter 3. Then all these elements will be integrated in a discussion of the four functional topics in Chapter 4.
2.01 Romanticism
Romantics maintain that there is a fundamental difference between sciences of nature and sciences of culture.
Romanticism has effectively no representation in the natural sciences today, but it is still widely represented in the social sciences including economics and sociology. It has its roots in the eighteenth-century German idealist philosophers including notably Immanuel Kant and especially Georg Hegel with the latter’s exclusive emphasis on ideas in culture. The idealist philosophies are of purely antiquarian interest to most philosophers of science today. Romantics have historically defaulted to the positivist philosophy for the natural sciences, but they reject imitating the positivist philosophy for the social sciences.
Aim of science:
For romantics the aim of the social sciences understood as investigations of culture is “interpretative understanding” of “human action”, by which is meant explanation of social interactions in terms of subjective mental states – ideas and motives, views and values – that are culturally shared by members of social groups.
This concept of the aim of science and of explanation is called a “foundational agenda”, because it requires reduction of the social sciences to a social-psychology foundation, i.e., description of observed social behavior by reference to subjective social-psychological mental states.
Discovery:
The discovery of theory in social science may be either the social scientist’s introspective reflection on his own ideas and motivations originating in his actual or imaginary experiences or originating in empirical survey research findings reporting respondents’ expressed ideas and motivations.
Romantics define “social theory” as language describing subjective mental states, notably culturally shared ideas and motivations.