James Bogen
نویسندگان
چکیده
A ccording to a widely shared view of science, scientific theories predict and explain facts about "observables": objects and properties which can be perceived by the senses, sometimes augmented by instruments. In the tradition associated with logical positivism, this view receives an influential formulation in terms of a supposed distinction between two kinds of vocabularies and an allied claim about the structure of theories. According to the positivists, facts about observables are reported by means of "observation-sentences," expressed in an "observational vocabulary." Explanation, prediction, and theory-testing involve the deduction of observation-sentences from other sentences, some of which may be formulated in a "theoretical" vocabulary, containing terms which do not signify observables. Such deductions are possible because theories also contain "correspondence rules" that systematically coordinate the terms of the theoretical vocabulary with terms from the observational vocabulary. 1
منابع مشابه
On the meaning and the epistemological relevance of the notion of a scientific phenomenon
In this paper I offer an appraisal of James Bogen and James Woodward’s distinction between data and phenomena which pursues two objectives. First, I aim to clarify the notion of a scientific phenomenon. Such a clarification is required because despite its intuitive plausibility it is not exactly clear how Bogen and Woodward’s distinction has to be understood. I reject one common interpretation ...
متن کاملWhat exactly is stabilized when phenomena are stabilized?
In their seminal article " Saving the Phenomena " , James Bogen and James Woodward argue that phenomena, not data, are the explananda of scientific theories (Bogen & Woodward 1988). By suggesting that phenomena are " relatively stable and general features of the world " , (Woodward 1989, 393), which are " detectable by means of a variety of different procedures " (Bogen & Woodward 1988, 317), t...
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In a recent paper James Bogen and James Woodward denounce a set of views on confirmation that they collectively brand ‘IRS’. The supporters of these views cast confirmation in terms of Inferential Relations between observational and theoretical Sentences. Against IRS accounts of confirmation, Bogen and Woodward unveil two main objections: (a) inferential relations are not necessary to model con...
متن کاملSaving the Phenomena*
A according to a widely shared view of science, scientific theories predict and explain facts about "observables": objects and properties which can be perceived by the senses, sometimes augmented by instruments. In the tradition associated with logical positivism, this view receives an influential formulation in terms of a supposed distinction between two kinds of vocabularies and an allied cla...
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