Laws of Science, Theories, Measurement

(Comments on Ernest Nagel's the Structure of Science )

Bibliographic Data

ID14432152
AuthorsLeszek Nowak (0000-0002-1910-8041, corresponding author)
Year1972
Volume39
Issue4
Pages533-548
Publication date1972-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophy of Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8248 • E-ISSN: 1539-767X
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1086/288479
OpenAlexW1985091035
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited1

The problem of idealization in empirical sciences is very rarely taken up in works concerned with the methodology of those sciences. It seems to be common knowledge that in advanced natural sciences references are made to concepts such as “perfectly rigid body,” “material point,” “perfect gas,” etc., but it remains a fact that the most important methodological concepts, concepts which have determined the present-day form of the philosophy of science, have been advanced without regard to the peculiarities of the procedure mentioned above. And yet a moment's consideration suffices to raise doubts as to Carnap's physicalism and/or Popper's falsificationism if we just realize the trivial and commonly known truth that empirical sciences resort to idealizationism. For how are we to imagine a reduction of idealizational concepts to observation terms? And how are we to imagine that theorems which include idealizational concepts imply observation statements which refute, or at least are at variance with, those theorems? But it is a fact that such doubts have neither been raised by the authors of the conceptions mentioned above, nor have they been raised (as far as the present writer is informed) against them

Epistemology · Idealization · Metaphysics · Natural science · Philosophy of science · Physicalism · Physics · Variance (accounting) · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy, Science, and History · Quantum Mechanics and Applications

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