Abstract
When I started my studies in the philosophy of science in the early fifties, it was quite clear to me that logical positivism was the leading school in the philosophy of the natural sciences. This conception was strongly promoted by the Vienna Circle between 1923 and 1938, as well as later when the events leading to World War II saw the Circle members leaving Vienna and establishing themselves all over the world, particularly in the United States. In the United States, Carnap would soon become a leading figure, whereas in England, Popper eventually would become the main proponent.
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Notes
Joseph J. Kockelmans, ‘Stegmüller on the Relationship Between Theory and Experience’, in Philosophy of Science 39 (1972), pp. 397–420; ‘Reflections on Lakatos’ Methodology of Scientific Research Programs’, in The Structure and Development of Science [Boston Studies,vol. 59], Gerard Radnitzky and Gunnar Andersson (eds.) (D. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1979), pp. 187–203; Heidegger and Science (Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology and University Press of America, Washington D.C., 1987), pp. 1–18, 117–89 (passim).
Phenomenology and Physical Science: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Physical Science (Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh, 1966); Ideas for a Hermeneutic Phenomenology of the Natural Sciences (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1993).
Bas van Fraassen, The Scientific Image (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980); ‘Empiricism in the Philosophy of Science’, in Images of Science, Paul M. Churchland and Clifford Hooker (eds.) (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1985), pp. 268–76; ‘Against Transcendental Empiricism’, in The Question of Hermeneutics, Timothy Stapleton (ed.) (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1994), pp. 309–35. “Against Transcendental Empiricism” was provoked by some critical remarks in my 1986 Presidential Address to the American Philosophical Association, entitled: ‘On the Problem of Truth in the Sciences’. This paper was later reprinted in Ideas for a Hermeneutic Phenomenology of the Natural Sciences, pp. 127–50. Van Fraassen writes in his response that “Against Transcendental Empiricism” has as companion “Against Naturalized Empiricism,” which appeared in On Quine, P. Leonardi and M. Santambrogio (eds.) (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993).
Bas van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, pp. 6–7.
Bas van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, pp. 1–5, 1172–9, 64–9, 201–3, and passim.
Ibid., pp. 39–40 and passim; Larry Laudan, ‘A Confutation of Convergent Realism’, in Philosophy of Science 48 (1981), pp. 19–49.
Brian Ellis, ‘What Science Aims to Do’, in Images of Science, pp. 52–54; Gary Gutting,’ scientific Realism versus Constructive Empiricism: A Dialogue’, in Images of Science, pp. 118–31 (passim).
Imre Lakatos, ‘Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes’, in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (eds.), pp. 95–138; Mary Hesse, Revolutions and Reconstructions in the Philosophy of Science (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1980), pp. 135–64; 173–86; ‘Laws and Theories’, in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volume IV, P. Edwards (ed.) (Macmillan, New York, 1967), pp. 404–10; Kurt Hübner, Critique of Scientific Reason, trans. Paul R. Dixon, Jr. and Hollis M. Dixon (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1983), Part 2.
Bas van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, pp. 3–4. To prevent misunderstanding here it is important to make a distinction between different types of scientific theories and to realize that the discussion is not about models or systematic theories, for instance, but merely about so-called causal theories, of which scientific realists hold that they are genuinely true. (Cf. Brian Ellis, ‘What Science Aims to Do’, pp. 55–6). One should note also that there are theories which seem to bear out the position of constructive empiricism (quantum mechanics, for example), whereas other theories prima facie seem to substantiate the position of scientific realism. If one makes a study of chemistry and biology it seems difficult not to become a realist. Giere writes that reading the history of molecular biology “it is difficult to find evidence of an overriding concern with saving the phenomena. The whole profession acted as if it were after the real molecular structure of real molecules.” (Ron Giere, ‘Constructive Realism’, in Images of Science, p. 96).
Bas C. van Fraassen, ‘Empiricism in the Philosophy of Science’, in Images of Science, pp. 268–276.
Ron Giere, ‘Constructive Realism’, in Images of Science, pp. 75–82.
Ibid., p. 82.
Bas van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, pp. 202–203.
Bas van Fraassen acknowledges that he feels most akin to French and German writers on science in the half century before logical positivism and to the nominalists of the fourteenth century (Images of Science, p. 300).
Ron Giere, ‘Constructive Realism’, p. 82; Clifford Hooker,’ surface Dazzle, Ghostly Depth’, in Images of Science, pp. 154ff.
See note 3 above.
‘Against Transcendental Empiricism’, pp. 309–310. Reichenbach’s book was published in London by Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Ibid., p. 318.
Ibid., p. 325.
Ibid., p. 328.
Ibid., p. 329.
Ibid., p. 330.
Ibid., p. 331.
Ibid., p. 331.
Ibid., p. 323–333.
Joseph J. Kockelmans, ‘Phenomenology and Psychology: Theoretical Problems in Phenomenological Psychology’, in Phenomenology and the Social Sciences, Maurice Natanson (ed.) (Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1973), pp. 225–280; ‘Empirische, phänomenologische und hermeneutische Psychologic Gedanken zu einer mehrdimensionalen Bestimmung des Problems der Psychologie’, in Versuche über Erfahrung, A. Métraux (ed.) (Hans Huber, Bern, 1976), pp. 35–49;’ some Reflections on Empirical Psychology: Toward an Interpretive Psychology’, in Reconsidering Psychology: Perspectives from Continental Philosophy, James E. Faulconer and Richard N. Williams (eds.) (Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh, 1990), pp. 75–91; ‘Reflection on Social Theory’, Human Studies. A Journal for Philosophy and the Social Sciences 1 (1978), pp. 1–15;’ some Reflections on the Meaning and Function of Interpretive Sociology’, Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 42 (1980), pp. 294–324; ‘Hermeneutic Phenomenology and the Science of History’, Phänomenologische Forschungen 2 (1976), pp. 130–79; ‘Toward a Hermeneutic Theory of the History of the Natural Sciences’, in Ideas for a Hermeneutic Phenomenology of the Natural Sciences, pp. 253–82. Cf. Heidegger and Science, pp. 190–248.
G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1993). Introduction, pp. 46–57, particularly pp. 55ff.
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (The Seabury Press, New York, 1975), pp. 235–341.
‘On the Meaning of the Transcendental Dimension in Philosophy’, in Perspektiven tran-szendentaler Reflexion, Gisela Müller and Thomas Seebohm (eds.) (Bouvier, Bonn, 1989), pp. 27–49.
Ibid., pp. 32–43.
Ideas for a Hermeneutic Phenomenology of the Natural Sciences, pp. 60–126.
‘Against Transcendental Empiricism’, pp. 328–330.
Ron Giere, ‘Constructive Realism’, p. 95; Richard N. Boyd, ‘Lex Orandi est Lex Credendi’, in Images of Science, p. 32.
Ron Giere, ‘Constructive Realism’, p. 75.
Imre Lakatos, op. cit., p. 94.
Cf. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (SCM Press, London, 1962), sect. 44.
Nicholas Rescher, The Coherence Theory of Truth (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1973).
Cf. Brian Ellis, ‘What Science Aims to Do’, pp. 62–73. For what follows see Martin Heidegger, On the Essence of Truth, trans. John Sallis in Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, David Farrell Krell (ed.) (Harper & Row, New York, 1977), pp. 117–41.
Aristotle, Metaphysics IX, 10, 1051b6–9.
Kurt Hübner, Critique of Scientific Reason, pp. 42–47, 82-89, 184-203.
Cf. Joseph J. Kockelmans, The World in Science and Philosophy (The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1969), pp. 123–133.
Bas_C. van Fraassen, ‘Empiricism in the Philosophy of Science’, p. 276.
Paul M. Churchland, ‘The Ontological Status of Observables’, in Images of Science, p. 35; Clark Glymour, ‘Explanation and Realism’, in Images of Science, pp. 99–116; Clifford Hooker,’ surface Dazzle, Ghostly Depth’, in Images of Science, pp. 166–7.
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Kockelmans, J.J. (1997). Hermeneutic vs. Empiricist Philosophy of Science. In: Ginev, D., Cohen, R.S. (eds) Issues and Images in the Philosophy of Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 192. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5788-9_11
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